Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

timr.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 286 posts

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#21

Post by nickdothutton »

Whenever I encounter a server-side rendered app which _doesn't_ work well, and I make a cursory examination of why, I usually find it's down to poor choices.

Ads causing reflow, embedding of other elements (off-site) with poor performance, the Cambrian explosion of trackers and other cancerous marketing-related cruft, labyrinthine page layouts because someone wanted a pixel-perfect visual. All things which are not the core app itself. This leads me to suspect that most apps would work just fine with a few easily anticipated exceptions.

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#22

Post by sanderjd »

PhoenixReborn wrote: post #15
sanderjd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I was trying to do this literally a decade ago (as in, I remember it being 2013 when I started trying to make an angularjs site work this way). I haven't been doing front-end or "full stack" for awhile, so I'm a bit out of the loop. Why has this seemingly failed to progress in the last decade?

Most of the more modern Javascript SSR frameworks support hybrid in some capacity (Remix, Next, Svelte). I can't speak for Angular as I've never used it.

Oh, I didn't mean to focus the discussion on angularjs; that "angularjs" that I was using was essentially a totally different and now-deprecated framework from today's angular. I just meant it as an example of why I don't see this as an up-and-coming idea, but rather something that has been the clear best path for a very long time, but doesn't seem to have taken off.

I don't know enough about any of the frameworks you mentioned to evaluate whether the "hybrid in some capacity" actually does mean this approach has become widely used, but I guess from my experience of using the web, it doesn't seem like it is common, it seems like most applications are still sending a skeleton and then filling the data in client-side, rather than rendering the initial page load server-side.

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#23

Post by ransackdev »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #5
trollied wrote: post #2

I swear people must get so lost in the development of some sites that they don't realise how bad they are. Pathetic load times, unnecessary page animations, confusing UIs, hijacking scrolling.

The best thing is those fucking sites where after the page seems to be completely loaded suddenly new components or even worse: ads pop in, and you accidentally click on those instead of what you intended to click on.

Sounds like it’s by design. Payouts for clicks is way higher than impressions. Sneaky sneaky. Or, malicious payloads await on the other side.

My favorite is when a full react site loads up, doesn’t have error boundaries, hits some unimportant js exception, and the entire page that was fully rendered and ready to go just pops out of existence and you are looking at a white page. That doesn’t seem like forward progress at all.

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#24

Post by mtkd »

It also usually means an app can be MVP'd a lot faster with less resource and fewer vertical skillsets

Large structural changes can often then be made early in the project by a single person or alternate concepts quickly prototyped when it's effectively a monolith -- you don't as quickly get locked into "we'll just have to live with that now"

I'm not against introducing client-side once the final functional form is reached if justifiable gains somewhere -- but from day-one it's usually just a headwind on a project of any complexity

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#25

Post by sanderjd »

xu_ituairo wrote: post #7
vlovich123 wrote: post #3

I think the next major change will be unified hybrid rendering. Render the initial view via SSR for speed, framework automatically injects more and more of the page transparently as user-driven events happen. All of this will be transparent and you only write the app once.

Do you mean something similar to Svelte becoming dominant?

I think from the comments here: probably? I don't know anything about Svelte, so I can't really say, but you're the third person I've seen say "this sounds like Svelte", so I'm inclined to think you're all right :)

So has it taken off / is it taking off? If not, why not? Or more to the point of my original comment: Why is something like this just now taking off? Has something new enabled this in the last few years?

It's not a new idea was my point in my comment, so I'm curious why the idea never seemed to take off in the past, and why it might be poised to now.

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#26

Post by nvm0n2 »

> What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

Seems like answering with SSR would fail a Thiel interview for two reasons:

1. It's not important (in the grand scheme of things)

2. It's not a view that very few people hold. SSR was the standard way to do things for a couple of decades up until frameworks like React, and React itself now implements SSR, doesn't it?

Thiel uses this question to try and determine if someone is or can be a free thinker, someone who can discern something to be true even in the face of significant social opposition. That's valuable if you're an investor looking for overlooked opportunities, or an entrepreneur trying to find an edge in a highly competitive market. But there is no taboo or significant social opposition to SSR webapps, and bluntly, no edge to be found there.

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#27

Post by [deleted] »

tommy_axle wrote: post #18
vlovich123 wrote: post #3

I think the next major change will be unified hybrid rendering. Render the initial view via SSR for speed, framework automatically injects more and more of the page transparently as user-driven events happen. All of this will be transparent and you only write the app once.

That's what frameworks like NextJS do.

[deleted]

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#28

Post by sanderjd »

badestrand wrote: post #20
sanderjd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I was trying to do this literally a decade ago (as in, I remember it being 2013 when I started trying to make an angularjs site work this way). I haven't been doing front-end or "full stack" for awhile, so I'm a bit out of the loop. Why has this seemingly failed to progress in the last decade?

This is already here and in use. See Next.js using React.js for example. Server-side rendering out of the box and small next needed pieces are loaded continuously when they are needed.

Nice! Anecdotally this still doesn't seem to be the dominant way that web apps I use are implemented. Is this just taking awhile to get mindshare, or are there some drawbacks keeping most people from using it?

Re: Server-side rendering is a better choice for many applications (2020)

#29

Post by gabereiser »

ransackdev wrote: post #23
AllegedAlec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing is those fucking sites where after the page seems to be completely loaded suddenly new components or even worse: ads pop in, and you accidentally click on those instead of what you intended to click on.

Sounds like it’s by design. Payouts for clicks is way higher than impressions. Sneaky sneaky. Or, malicious payloads await on the other side. My favorite is when a full react site loads up, doesn’t have error boundaries, hits some unimportant js exception, and the entire page that was fully rendered and ready to go just pops out of existence and you are looking at a white page. That doesn’t seem like forward progress…

This is why I shun any and all front-end frameworks. They all suffer from this (except lit) with their shadow-dom.

If a page is presented, it better be f&@king usable

Post reply on HN