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Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

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Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#1

Post by karolinepauls »

Back in "my days" we would get an in-house web designer to create assets, styles, and a demo HTML document demonstrating all necessary components to implement the planned content.

We would then break down the demo HTML into templates, which we would render in the backend, and work from there.

There would be JS for interactive components - first Knockout (viewmodels, terrible idea), then React (which would let you separate the state from presentation).

Backend templates + React frontend components was IMO the optimum, as long as your POST handling logic was sensible and data-oriented rather than some OO nightmare (https://wtforms.readthedocs.io/en/3.2.x/fields/#the-field-base-class).

You didn't have to implement the API separately from the frontend to later discover that your frontend developer worked really... fast. And implemented their own understanding of the problem domain. These days, if you're super unlucky, you discover that your frontend has been blessed with some non-standard component wrappers, which wrap components, which wrap components, which wrap... And somehow types in TS docs still have no links, so good luck finding what they mean by TData, especially if TData comes from a different codebase.

tl;dr: The tldr is in the title. I want sanity back :D

Re: Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#3

Post by leakycap »

SPA development is everywhere because you can charge a lot more for it, and web development has become commoditized in many other arenas

Sanity is available immediately if you are willing to be paid less. There are tons of simple, non-SPA, non-stack-on-stack projects out there, they just usually pay 1/10th the complex stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#4

Post by austin-cheney »

I prefer to develop SPAs for personal use but with vanilla JS. My goal is both scalability, performance, and accessibility. Its hard to find employment that values things like high performance and test automation, so I switched to a different kind of software for employment where I was quickly elevated into management.

I don't want to go back to JavaScript for employment so long as its riddled with unnecessary abstraction/dependency nonsense. While I did get tired of solving for the numerous problems that shouldn't exist in the first place I got more tired of insecure peers who were always quick to point fingers. I don't have to worry about that any more.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#7

Post by Leftium »

cranberryturkey wrote: post #2

I'm starting to get into building .onion sites and my general experience is people on Tor all have js disabled. So I'm looking for a js-free framework that works with node.js (ironically)

SvelteKit has been designed so JS on the client can be optional. (All JS is executed in node.js, with optional JS enhancement on the client.)

Try playing Sverdle with JS disabled! https://sveltekit-template.vercel.app/sverdle

> Unlike the original Wordle, Sverdle runs on the server instead of in the browser, making it impossible to cheat. It uses and cookies to submit data, meaning you can even play with JavaScript disabled!

Re: Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#8

Post by karolinepauls »

leakycap wrote: post #3

SPA development is everywhere because you can charge a lot more for it, and web development has become commoditized in many other arenas Sanity is available immediately if you are willing to be paid less. There are tons of simple, non-SPA, non-stack-on-stack projects out there, they just usually pay 1/10th the complex stuff.

Sorry not to have made this clear: I am not a frontend developer. I'm a backend/infra developer who's forced to work on a React app abandoned by a frontend developer who incorporated their own wrappers-of-wrappers-of-wrappers.

Meanwhile the client is telling me is virtually impossible to find frontend devs willing to write HTML.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#9

Post by leakycap »

karolinepauls wrote: post #8
leakycap wrote: post #3

SPA development is everywhere because you can charge a lot more for it, and web development has become commoditized in many other arenas Sanity is available immediately if you are willing to be paid less. There are tons of simple, non-SPA, non-stack-on-stack projects out there, they just usually pay 1/10th the complex stuff.

Sorry not to have made this clear: I am not a frontend developer. I'm a backend/infra developer who's forced to work on a React app abandoned by a frontend developer who incorporated their own wrappers-of-wrappers-of-wrappers. Meanwhile the client is telling me is virtually impossible to find frontend devs willing to write HTML.

Almost any developer familiar with HTML would be willing to write HTML if they were paid similarly to making something flashy in React (to use your example)

Because I don't believe this is a real issue in the marketplace, I will write HTML for your client if they are truly unable to find someone. Writing HTML would be the easiest paid job I could imagine in my field right now.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any non-SPA front end developers left?

#10

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

cranberryturkey wrote: post #2

I'm starting to get into building .onion sites and my general experience is people on Tor all have js disabled. So I'm looking for a js-free framework that works with node.js (ironically)

> So I'm looking for a js-free framework that works with node.js (ironically)

I know you already called it out but there really is something funny about this. The primary reason I recall for node's popularity is that it means you only have to know one language. I guess that's still true...

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