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Please just try HTMX

pleasejusttryhtmx.com

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Re: Please just try HTMX

#151

Post by ZeroConcerns »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #140
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs know nothing about Unpoly, and quite a bit about htmx. This requires you to actually learn Unpoly, because, well, even pointing your LLM-of-choice at the Unpoly docs (which are quite okay!) makes it regress-to-the-ugly-Javascript-workarounds-mean pretty much on try #1. I'm not yet sure whether this is a good thing or not -- I'll let you know once my latest iteration of my web framework is finally working as I en…

I don’t think there is anything in unpoly that a good llm couldn’t figure out with a look over the docs pretty quickly. It’s pretty simple and has some great functionality, especially if you are shooting for progressive enhancement.

Well, I actually use Unpoly, and I can assure you that LLMs don't get it, no matter how many pointers to the (excellent!) docs one includes.

Like, even just now, Claude Code with Opus 4-dot-latest, is absolutely convinced you need a bunch of fragile cascading Javascript listeners to dismiss a lower-level menu in case a dialog is opened, while the Unpoly docs, correctly and clearly, point out that 'shatter' exists for just that purpose.

And this is one of the use cases that I continue to highlight as the achilles heel of LLMs. I'm not holding it wrong: they're not reading it right.

Re: Please just try HTMX

#152

Post by g947o »

foldr wrote: post #43
g947o wrote: post #15

I am tired of people using the smallest "Hello World" example to demonstrate how something is better than React -- "See, you don't need all these things to get a website up and running!" Of course it will work. I can vibe code the most terrible web framework you have seen within 20 minutes and claim it is better than React, but what does it prove? > You write zero JavaScript > The whole library is ~14kb gzipped Oh su…

In fairness, the article has a section titled “The Numbers” which links to this: https://htmx.org/essays/a-real-world-react-to-htmx-port/

Different teams/projects have different needs and require different solutions. While it's good it worked in their favor, I am quite confident that someone else can tell a completely different story. In fact, there are some comments in this very HN discussion that detail their negative experience with htmx. I would not use one or the other to "convince" anybody to go with either solution like what this article attempts to do.

Re: Please just try HTMX

#153

Post by H1Supreme »

> But sometimes—and here's where it gets uncomfortable—you actually do need a button that updates part of a page without reloading the whole damn thing. You do need a search box that shows results as you type. You do need interactivity.

You can do this with plain old Javascript. Make a request, swap out the [inner | outer]HTML with the result. If you want a nice visual transition, wrap the swap in a startViewTransition(). Obviously, you need to be extra careful if you're using user-submitted HTML. Otherwise, it's fairly straight forward.

Re: Please just try HTMX

#154

Post by the_other »

0x3f wrote: post #100
purerandomness wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality of React is that you have to keep re-learning and un-learning stuff if you want to keep up with React's ecosystem, because the surface area of the libraries is so large. (see "JavaScript fatigue") Whereas with HTMX you learn a very, very basic concept in 15mins, and you're good to go for the next decade(s), and it will be more than enough for 80% of your projects. Same as with vim and Emacs vs. proprietar…

I agree that people often do this but I don't think you _have_ to. You could have freely ignored SSR, RSC, etc. and kept on making boring old React SPAs. The churn is largely opt-in.

My current app is a boring SPA. SSR, RSC wouldn’t make sense for it. My previous app was a video player with UI drawn in React: couldn’t SSR that.

Re: Please just try HTMX

#155

Post by davidhariri »

HTMX is a great choice for an app that only needs forms, validation and partial template rendering, though CSS view transitions are making partials less relevant for server side web applications.

For things with heavy interaction (drag and drop, chat etc.), I find the code to make it work with HTMX is just too clumsy to work with as a mental model.

Re: Please just try HTMX

#156

Post by AlienRobot »

bargainbin wrote: post #149

> That's HTMX. I didn't write JavaScript to make those work. I wrote HTML attributes. Well you didn’t write standard HTML attributes, you wrote custom attributes that are picked up by a JS framework, so potentially the worst of both worlds depending on your problem space. Having tried HTMX a few times, the problem is firmly in creating a backend that feeds it properly. It’s a disjointed experience for anything more c…

HTMX sounds like it works best when you are fetching data from endpoints that would serve HTML already, like -based sidebar navigation.

Re: Please just try HTMX

#157

Post by viiralvx »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #29

Hey, I created htmx and while I appreciate the publicity, I’m not a huge fan of these types of hyperbolic articles. There are lots of different ways to build web apps with their own strengths and weaknesses. I try to assess htmx’s strengths and weaknesses here: https://htmx.org/essays/when-to-use-hypermedia/ Also, please try unpoly: https://unpoly.com/ It’s another excellent hypermedia oriented library Edit: the arti…

Damn, Unpoly looks great! Never tried HTMX but have been a fan of it, it solves a UX problem that frameworks like Django and Rails suffer from, without needing to bring in something heavy like React.

I'm currently working on a side project in Rails using Stimulus but sometimes I wonder if Stimulus is overkill with all of the controllers and stuff as well. Do you have an opinion on when you should reach for something like Inertia or Stimulus over htmx?

Re: Please just try HTMX

#160

Post by adamzwasserman »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #29

Hey, I created htmx and while I appreciate the publicity, I’m not a huge fan of these types of hyperbolic articles. There are lots of different ways to build web apps with their own strengths and weaknesses. I try to assess htmx’s strengths and weaknesses here: https://htmx.org/essays/when-to-use-hypermedia/ Also, please try unpoly: https://unpoly.com/ It’s another excellent hypermedia oriented library Edit: the arti…

here is the long-promised frontal assault on Big State: dataos.software
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