171–180 of 310 posts
This is very exciting, I really love the LoFi (Local first) wave. The need to write the reducer in Rust for now is a big bummer. Rust is cool, but JS is easier to get started quick. ElectricSQL is an alternative which is cool too.
Are we set on this abbreviation? Cause it's super confusing.
An old company I worked for used project management software with a check-in/out mechanism for making changes. When you "check out" a project it downloads a copy that you change locally, then "check in" uploads it back to the server. A project is "locked" while in the "checked out" state. We all felt it was an archaic mechanism in a word of live updating apps. After 10 years of building SPA "web apps", that data sync…
What many people either can't or don't want to acknowledge is that ultimately whether or not you support live updates in parallel by multiple users, instead of locking so only one update can proceed at a time, is not a technical decision, it's a business decision: do the business rules that are appropriate for your application enable you to deal with concurrent live updates or not? Ultimately that comes down to wheth…
This seems to be one of those problems that entirely disappears by ditching SPAs. Using solutions from the Hotwire or htmx family would mean that a query is just a server query - making those fast is a better-understood problem.
This isn't a problem of only websites. Should mobile and desktop ecosystems start making a big move for thin-client like the browser? Should a simple app like Apple Reminders or Google Tasks have the GUI pause if there are delays or connection issues?
Yes, they should, because I _need_ good feedback for connection issues.
I have not used those two specific apps, but for other "online first" apps it's such a common problem. Open an app, type a note, switch back to a different app (or turn off your phone, or close laptop lid).
Later on, you want to access the note and it's not there. Why? the authors decided to be "smart" and "offline first" and made sync in background, with no feedback, or with heavily delayed feedback... and I was walking out of wifi range when i was typing the note, so connection was spotty.
The OP's demo TODO app has exactly the same problem - no indication when the data is already uploaded. So please, if your real goal is collaboration, let user know when you cannot perform it, don't sweep it under the rug hoping the things would get uploaded eventually.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recently gave htmx a spin. It is absolutely bananas how much complexity it removes and how much more productive you become as a result. The fact that you can use whatever stack you want is also such a blessing. I tried it with ocaml + web components and it’s a 10/10 super productive experience. Only need one build tool that compiles faster than I can blink, no wiring needed between frontend and backend to map json, i…
I took a close look at htmx, and my impression is that the problems it addresses can be resolved with even fewer than its 4000 lines of JS [1], and without having to familiarize myself with its many opinionated approaches. The crux of the matter is to generate HTML on the server, as much as possible. I know how to achieve that without htmx. The marketing materials for htmx are also a bit off-putting to me, and the au…
Yeah, htmx is 3800 LoC, and you could do an 80/20 version of it for a lot less, but there are a lot of details to get right: history, collecting inputs, etc. plus, since it's a general purpose library, it has an extensive event system, extension mechanism, etc. There isn't a ton of dead weight to drop, although 2.0 should be smaller as we drop some bad ideas in 1.x.
I don't care too much about the holy wars around REST, I found them off-putting back in the day before I really understood the concept, but I am passionate about the uniform interface and communicating to developers why that was interesting and different. I do go a bit hot at times, especially at twitter, but, on the other hand, if I didn't, would you have ever heard of htmx? I try to balance that all out w/ reasonable essays and the book, which, I think, is worthwhile for most web developers to read (it's free online.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thankyou for the very informative article, I appreciate the irony using a post titled "Stop building databases" to announce a new database :-)
You're welcome! And I'm glad you enjoyed it. Once I thought of that title I had to use it. My only saving grace is that technically I didn't make a new DB - just using good ol SQLite. Mostly. :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
years and years ago on a C++ forum someone made an observation that was eerily similar to yours. I still remember it to this day as it stuck in my head. They made an observation that our industry goes in cyclical centralize/de-centralize cycles and that we we were (at the time) entering into a centralization cycle. Now here I am reading a comment that we're going back into a de-centralization cycle and I wouldn't be…
Could be - I've been making this observation for a long time. The cycles keep going. On the other hand, probably lots of other people have commented on it as well... You may be right about the browser becoming the OS. Chromebooks were already a step in that direction. But JS/HTML/CSS really is a horrible combination for application programming. If the browser does become the OS, can we please get decent technology to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuinely curious why not just cache the relevant bits in LocalStorage / SessionStorage? I seem to remember Chrome trying to add a literal SQL database to the browser, but it never panned out, localStorage became king. I don't mean to downplay the usefulness, just I usually opt for what the browser gives me. I'm huge on WASM and what it will do for the browser as it matures more (or grows in features).
There is a literal SQL store in the browser its the sqlite Wasm port. Its just panning out a little differently.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a problem of only websites. Should mobile and desktop ecosystems start making a big move for thin-client like the browser? Should a simple app like Apple Reminders or Google Tasks have the GUI pause if there are delays or connection issues?
> Should a simple app like Apple Reminders or Google Tasks have the GUI pause if there are delays or connection issues? Yes, they should, because I _need_ good feedback for connection issues. I have not used those two specific apps, but for other "online first" apps it's such a common problem. Open an app, type a note, switch back to a different app (or turn off your phone, or close laptop lid). Later on, you want to…
In regard to the TODO demo - I should totally add that. Thanks :) https://github.com/orbitinghail/sqlsync/issues/31
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What many people either can't or don't want to acknowledge is that ultimately whether or not you support live updates in parallel by multiple users, instead of locking so only one update can proceed at a time, is not a technical decision, it's a business decision: do the business rules that are appropriate for your application enable you to deal with concurrent live updates or not? Ultimately that comes down to wheth…
Indeed, many of the most painful technical problems are actually three business problems in a trenchcoat.