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The boring front-end developer

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Re: The boring front-end developer

#141

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

vilmosi wrote: post #123
alanh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps is famous as a pioneering use of AJAX, not as an SPA. Whether it is or is not an SPA at present is largely immaterial. There are many ways to create interactive experiences without full-page reloads, and going full SPA is just one route.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused about the difference between an Ajax powered page vs an SPA

AJAX and the ability to manipulate the DOM has been around for about a decade or so, AJAX came out of Microsoft I believe.

Putting bits of AJAX into a web app doesn't make it SPA. Lets say you have a CRUD web application that is tax forms which end up being 5-10 "pages" printed. Then as a SPA you would have to load all the code to generate the 5-10 pages of forms, validation, logic, etc. onto a Single Page. This single page would be where everything is done, the URL would not change and the end user would have a seamless experience.

If the goal is interactivity and seamless operation to the end user, attempting to mimic a desktop app, there are multiple paths to achieving that goal. Limiting the design to a single page seems sort of contrived and a "do it because I can" type of approach, absent of user requirements - in my opinion.

Re: The boring front-end developer

#142

Post by omouse »

nkassis wrote: post #56
copperx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are too many good ideas being born right now to risk falling into rigid patterns of thinking. The problem is that there are too many ideas out there, period. It's almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. See: JavaScript libraries.

Definitely an issue but it shouldn't prevent you from using some tools. For example, I've mostly stayed away from compile to JS languages except for ClojureScript (for personal project) and TypeScript because I see real value in both of them. TypeScript has been a massive boon to help with the largish client side app I work on professionally. Helps keeps the code base somewhat sane and easy to develop in. CSS preproc…

I wish I was using TypeScript right now; we're using babel for ES6 transpiling and I've found a situation where a particular importing of a module doesn't work correctly. It appears correctly when I run it through the eslint tool and babel/webpack don't seem to complain when compiling, but in the browser it doesn't work.

When trying TypeScript and CoffeeScript I never ran into issues like that.

Re: The boring front-end developer

#143

Post by hlfcoding »

The irony is implementing progressive enhancement and accessibility is anything but simple, and probably just as big a maintenance burden as custom form controls, and comes with debatable gain.

Each project and team and project is different, there's no constant requirements in frontend, in tools or features. Some teams may be super unproductive without Sass. This post is very much written from the bias of older trends, and from a time when the frontend had fewer real concerns other than styling a document.

Re: The boring front-end developer

#145

Post by vilmosi »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #141
vilmosi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused about the difference between an Ajax powered page vs an SPA

AJAX and the ability to manipulate the DOM has been around for about a decade or so, AJAX came out of Microsoft I believe. Putting bits of AJAX into a web app doesn't make it SPA. Lets say you have a CRUD web application that is tax forms which end up being 5-10 "pages" printed. Then as a SPA you would have to load all the code to generate the 5-10 pages of forms, validation, logic, etc. onto a Single Page. This sing…

>>> This single page would be where everything is done, the URL would not change

There's HTML5 history API, lazy loading... Seriously, you describe SPAs in very simplistic terms that are just not true. Do you have any experience building them?

Google Maps is technically an "Ajax powered web app", but it's technically an SPA too as you never encounter a full page refresh.

Re: The boring front-end developer

#146

Post by minitech »

akilism wrote: post #79
minitech wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not so much about supporting legacy software as having something that’s likely to show something in any browser, from Firefox to IE6 to Dillo to Lynx.

Am I supposed to worry about IE6 when Microsoft doesn't? Can we draw the line at supporting things when their creators give up on them?

The point of my comment was to say you don’t have to support old or obscure browsers specifically; just have proper content in your HTML and everyone will be satisfied without additional effort on your part.

Re: The boring front-end developer

#147

Post by cnp »

omouse wrote: post #142
nkassis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely an issue but it shouldn't prevent you from using some tools. For example, I've mostly stayed away from compile to JS languages except for ClojureScript (for personal project) and TypeScript because I see real value in both of them. TypeScript has been a massive boon to help with the largish client side app I work on professionally. Helps keeps the code base somewhat sane and easy to develop in. CSS preproc…

I wish I was using TypeScript right now; we're using babel for ES6 transpiling and I've found a situation where a particular importing of a module doesn't work correctly. It appears correctly when I run it through the eslint tool and babel/webpack don't seem to complain when compiling, but in the browser it doesn't work. When trying TypeScript and CoffeeScript I never ran into issues like that.

OMG, Webpack... you love it and you hate it.... and it never gets easier!

Re: The boring front-end developer

#148

Post by snarkyturtle »

woah wrote: post #134
snarkyturtle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people disable JS or if it fails for whatever reason, you'll be left with an unusable site. If fonts don't load or if css doesn't load, at least you still have html and you could read what's on the screen. With JS you won't even be able to navigate to pages since it all gets handled with js. That and it often has more to load than your traditional html/css page, which means a less pleasant experience on slower con…

Not true if you use a decent framework.

If your framework just saves up json like most SPA's, your pretty much SOL unless you do non-js fallbacks, but that's boring and tedious ;)

Re: The boring front-end developer

#149

Post by atom-morgan »

thekingshorses wrote: post #144
atom-morgan wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own experience on the job market is largely the opposite even if they say otherwise.

I am hiring. http://interana.com/

Unfortunately I just accepted a job offer about a week ago. Thank you though :)
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