It would be interesting to measure battery savings made by disabling JavaScript on mobile devices. While it might be cheaper to plop website on GitHub Pages or Netlify and others, somehow I feel that all costs are just handed down to the user in bandwidth and battery use.
Things engineers believe about Web development
131–140 of 254 posts
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#132The refrain against the "we should go back to MPA apps with server rendered HTML" is often "well what about Figma and Photoshop", which of course, yes those don't really work in the MPA, server rendered HTML model. The problem isn't so much those but how most developers lump themselves in with the incredibly interactive sites because it sounds sexier and cooler to work on something complex than something simple. The…
> you should strive to make solutions that require the simplest tools possible whenever you can
I’ve gone back to making MPA apps with minimal JS. It helps me actually ship my projects rather than tinkering and having an over complicated setup for mostly CRUD tasks.
In one project that is a bit more data intensive and interactive I’m using Laravel Breeze / Laravel + inertajs (SSR react pages).
I’m also a big fan of Jekyll lately, I made my own theme on Thursday with only 2 tiny scripts for the mobile menu and submission of the contact form.
Using DOM APIs and managing a little bit of state is fine for many, many projects.
OTOH when you don’t control the requirements and the business asks for a ton of stateful widgets progressive enhancement can become a mess of spaghetti in the UI and API unless very carefully managed and well thought out. At that point you might as well go all in on React/Angular/Vue, especially when you have to account for a mix of skill levels and turnover.
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#133Well written informative article.
What does it say about this whole domain when, as the author says, Web Apps and Sites/Blogs (also add in Mobile apps) are so very different from each other using a myriad set of technologies each of which has a learning curve? Where is the uniformity and commonality in all this? Why are developers even perpetuating this?
That said, this might be a good place to ask for recommendations for study since i am not a "Web Developer";
1) Comprehensive books/other sources on full-stack Web App and Site development. Bonus points if they use a single language for frontend/backend/everything else.
2) The same as above but using C/C++ languages.
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is motte-and-bailey argumentation in my opinion. The motte: SPAs are a good way to write highly complex applications in the browser, like Photoshop and Figma, to compete with desktop apps. The bailey: SPAs are a good way to write most web applications. If you attack the bailey, proponents retreat to the motte, which is hard to disagree with. With the motte successfully defended, proponents return to the bailey,…
Strangely enough, this dichotomy seems to exist only for the web platform. Everywhere else (desktop, mobile etc) the model is SPAs. The only reason people distinguish it for web is because of legacy: html + DOM, i.e. Documents. Documents don't generally require programmers even if using lateX. Both models can coexist. I believe that SPAs somewhat supersede MPAs and that an MPA can be a simplification sometimes for a…
Oh my, may I remind folks about SDI vs MDI https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-document_interface
Or the window-is-application/process (Windows, Linux DEs) vs window-is-document-and-application-is-independent (MacOS) models
Or spatial navigation vs file browser.
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Physicists work on interesting problems. Developers work on profitable problems, mostly manufactured, for huge piles of money, from home, and with yoga over lunch.
I didn’t say “interesting” problems. Just problems. Anyway, sometimes they are interesting. I think Rich Hickey worked on some interesting problems. Clojure and Datomic are pretty neat, and Electric looks like an interesting problem, too :)
Rich Hickey is a founder, not a developer and regardless he is motivated by pain-minimization in the context of money making: "I had had enough!" [of manufactured complexity in commercial development] — his paper
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is motte-and-bailey argumentation in my opinion. The motte: SPAs are a good way to write highly complex applications in the browser, like Photoshop and Figma, to compete with desktop apps. The bailey: SPAs are a good way to write most web applications. If you attack the bailey, proponents retreat to the motte, which is hard to disagree with. With the motte successfully defended, proponents return to the bailey,…
Strangely enough, this dichotomy seems to exist only for the web platform. Everywhere else (desktop, mobile etc) the model is SPAs. The only reason people distinguish it for web is because of legacy: html + DOM, i.e. Documents. Documents don't generally require programmers even if using lateX. Both models can coexist. I believe that SPAs somewhat supersede MPAs and that an MPA can be a simplification sometimes for a…
> Strangely enough, this dichotomy seems to exist only for the web platform.
> Everywhere else (desktop, mobile etc) the model is SPAs.
It exists for CLIs too, where some projects provide a collection of single-purpose programs (e.g. imagemagick) and others provide a single program which can do many things (e.g. git)
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#137The tech sector is riddled with such divisions of perspective. ”In a high-level language like C...” - chip designer ”In a low-level language like C...” - application programmer
Anecdote: Coming from the application side i had always thought of C as a low-level language but in one company where i worked with chip designers who only did Verilog, i was gobsmacked when in my conversations with them they said they didn't know higher-level languages like C and cannot program in it.
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The earliest web apps I worked on were multi-page apps, with pages generated by Perl CGIs, later PHP. There was almost nothing going on on the client side except form submissions and a bit of JS-based form validation. I can tell you with 100% certainty this was simpler to build than most anything I see today with React SPAs and REST APIs. Even a simple form submission can be a PITA with modern tools.
> Even a simple form submission can be a PITA with modern tools. SPA excel in complex interactions if you need only very simple forms it will be PITA
SPA definitely have their place. However, when I see them be used for content-oriented sites with minimal user interaction (few forms, etc.) I wonder what guided the decision.
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#139The refrain against the "we should go back to MPA apps with server rendered HTML" is often "well what about Figma and Photoshop", which of course, yes those don't really work in the MPA, server rendered HTML model. The problem isn't so much those but how most developers lump themselves in with the incredibly interactive sites because it sounds sexier and cooler to work on something complex than something simple. The…
> well what about Figma and Photoshop
I, for one, don't want them rendered in my browser. I have an OS that can run apps, and I want my browser to be an app that renders simple HTML pages. If you want an app, make a damn Desktop app that can run on my OS.
Re: Things engineers believe about Web development
#140The refrain against the "we should go back to MPA apps with server rendered HTML" is often "well what about Figma and Photoshop", which of course, yes those don't really work in the MPA, server rendered HTML model. The problem isn't so much those but how most developers lump themselves in with the incredibly interactive sites because it sounds sexier and cooler to work on something complex than something simple. The…
This is motte-and-bailey argumentation in my opinion. The motte: SPAs are a good way to write highly complex applications in the browser, like Photoshop and Figma, to compete with desktop apps. The bailey: SPAs are a good way to write most web applications. If you attack the bailey, proponents retreat to the motte, which is hard to disagree with. With the motte successfully defended, proponents return to the bailey,…
A fun metaphor. A SPA-inclined team/consultancy/department will retreat to their motte when necessary. They'll live to fight another day. Given a chance, they'll return to the bailey, advocating for SPAs under a relaxed standard.
Using this metaphor can imply significant disingenuity: a lack of honesty about one's true belief.