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The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

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Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#51

Post by freyr »

vilmosi wrote: post #8

The main disadvantages mentioned in this article relate to the fact that many SPA today don't replicate the traditional routing mechanism. Which, in my humble opinion, is the wrong thing to judge it on. You can easily have a single-page-application on a... Single Page. The actual url can just preserve the current state of the app, instead of a location.

Unfortunately, I have seen SPAs that emulate multi-page websites and the traditional routing mechanism. I'm even guilty of creating one, and I very quickly regretted it! It's generally not a good idea.

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#52

Post by freyr »

stevedomin wrote: post #15

As with everything, if you're going to do SPA, you should do it well. So far, one of the best SPA website I've seen is https://gocardless.com (disclaimer: I work there). Once loaded it's probably one of the fastest website I've browsed, and it doesn't have any of the drawbacks you mentioned: navigating to a new page is quick: ✓ navigating back is quick: ✓ remembering scroll position: ✓ cancelling navigation: ✗ but we…

I just wrote a post condemning the use of SPAs that emulate multi-page websites and basic browser functionality, but you provided an interesting counter-example. In fact, it goes to an extreme by being an "app" with minimal user interaction beyond basic navigation across pages.

It is quite fast, which is nice. One of my concerns about SPAs that emulate MPWs is that you're sacrificing speed for complexity, which generally leads to errors. But by serving up static content and limiting interactivity, you get the speed while keeping complexity manageable.

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#53

Post by vilmosi »

freyr wrote: post #51
vilmosi wrote: post #8

The main disadvantages mentioned in this article relate to the fact that many SPA today don't replicate the traditional routing mechanism. Which, in my humble opinion, is the wrong thing to judge it on. You can easily have a single-page-application on a... Single Page. The actual url can just preserve the current state of the app, instead of a location.

Unfortunately, I have seen SPAs that emulate multi-page websites and the traditional routing mechanism. I'm even guilty of creating one, and I very quickly regretted it! It's generally not a good idea.

Same here. Today, I tend to make sure these days that my projects absolutely are SPAs beforehand. If someone mentions traditional pages, SPA is out.

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#54

Post by mandeepj »

All,

If you want detailed guidance on how to build SPA apps in a right way then you need to check out this guide (called Project Silk) from Microsoft [1]. It contains lot of insights and all the approaches provided are still applicable in 2015.

It comes with complete source code.

[1] - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh396380.aspx

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#55

Post by dfcowell »

arenaninja wrote: post #34
stevedomin wrote: post #15

As with everything, if you're going to do SPA, you should do it well. So far, one of the best SPA website I've seen is https://gocardless.com (disclaimer: I work there). Once loaded it's probably one of the fastest website I've browsed, and it doesn't have any of the drawbacks you mentioned: navigating to a new page is quick: ✓ navigating back is quick: ✓ remembering scroll position: ✓ cancelling navigation: ✗ but we…

Any idea why on https://gocardless.com/merchants/new , when the Email Address input has focus, Cmd+Left arrow do not navigate to the previous page? Once the input no longer has focus, I'm allowed to use the shortcut again.

Probably because Cmd+left arrow is the system shortcut for "jump to the start of the current line." You'll see this behaviour when a form input has focus on any site.

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#56

Post by ChicagoDave »

I completely disagree with the assessment of this article. I've been building and managing the build of simple to enterprise web applications since the web was born. I'm familiar with the entire spectrum of development platforms from old CGI/Perl, ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion, ASP.NET, MVC-platforms (pick one), and now SPA's using front-end platforms like AngularJS and ReactJS.

The amount of time saved in developing services and front-ends over a server-based system is so significant as to offset any of the complexities mentioned here.

The speed of development, the ability to rapidly change requirements, to adapt to stakeholders wants and needs...all are supported by the service+SPA model.

And tooling is coming in many forms to support this pattern, so it's not going anywhere.

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#57

Post by jestar_jokin »

fizzbatter wrote: post #19

I must say i'm constantly surprised by the negativity towards changes in technology by the technology oriented crowd. More specifically, the pure negativity. So many (here included) constantly shout negativity towards these technology concepts (SPA, in this case), and thankfully also citing what they're negative specifically about. What i'm surprised to see though, is that so few focus on improving the tech concept (…

I worked on a project that implemented a SPA with its own tab-based browsing, including nested iframes for some tabs(!). I worked on another projected that implemented a SPA with its own windowing system, because the lead dev thought browser tabs would be too cluttered and users might not know how to use them. (Considering his browser had something like 100 tabs open and he never cleaned them up or opened the existing tabs, I think there was a bit of personal experience colouring his view.)

I think the general issue is that there are existing solutions that avoid the downsides associated with this approach, so this seems like re-inventing the wheel. Yes, needless negativity should be avoided, but so should breathless enthusiasm without due diligence.

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#58

Post by qu4z-2 »

fizzbatter wrote: post #19

I must say i'm constantly surprised by the negativity towards changes in technology by the technology oriented crowd. More specifically, the pure negativity. So many (here included) constantly shout negativity towards these technology concepts (SPA, in this case), and thankfully also citing what they're negative specifically about. What i'm surprised to see though, is that so few focus on improving the tech concept (…

In all fairness, I thought early smartphones were pretty silly, and my opinion hasn't much changed.

I also find people touting "progress" don't realise that a lot of the time they just mean "change". I mean, sure, if a new way of doing things is demonstrably better, by all means let's use it. But a lot of the time you're just swapping one (well-understood) set of tradeoffs and considerations for a new, less understood set, because "That's what we're doing now".

For all that a lot of technical people like to make fun of the fashion industry, we definitely have our own as well.

(Not to take away from people trying different approaches. I'm all for trying alternate paths from 'best practice'. You don't want to get stuck on a local maximum. That said, there is a chunk of our industry that seems to congregate around whatever technology or approach has been recently discovered to be feasible)

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#59

Post by qu4z-2 »

holofernes wrote: post #2

Finally some love for the anti-SPA crowd. Subjective here, but there's something nice about Post Redirect Get and Plain Ol' Hyperlinks from a User Experience. Whenever I interact with a regular web application, I am relieved. Not every "forms over data" or ecommerce experience has to be Gmail. Even in mobile.. SPA just isn't that much nicer. Also, I think maintaining these SPAs is ridiculously more difficult. I don't…

Funnily enough, even for GMail I use their "legacy" HTML+URLs+POST requests interface. It's honestly a breath of fresh air (although the styling is a bit dated).

But it's lovely to be able to open multiple compose windows in new tabs by just middle-clicking the "Compose Mail" link. Then again, I realise the more explicit workflow is a matter of preference (eg it won't autosave drafts unless you hit "Save draft", and I like that, but others might not).

Re: The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications (2014)

#60

Post by qu4z-2 »

nkassis wrote: post #37
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would users not care about the stop button working? If something in the browser is not loading, I want to hit stop so I can wait a while before trying again.

What would a stop button in Word be like? It really depends on the type of webapp and experience you are trying to create.

Word also doesn't generally lock up when it can't access the network, and sit there spinning though. (Although I'm sure that feature is on the road-map).

I feel like a lot of the people making SPAs just haven't used a dodgy internet connection in five years or more.

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