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A clean start for the web (2020)

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Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#101
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New idea? Hypermedia is from 1965, and has been a thing since 1991; HTML. recursivedoubts HTMX library is cutting edge 2005 technology. To add to both of your arguments, "JS-routers" like SvelteKit/NuxtJS/NextJS are literally reinventing server side rendering for the client to then call the actual server to get data ... to render HTML. HTMX, LiveView, Livewire, Hotwire etc are escape hatches back to sanity.

> SvelteKit/NuxtJS/NextJS are literally reinventing server side rendering for the client to then call the actual server to get data ... to render HTML. It's all done in one call - at least in Svelte. You can even render all this into a fully static site. Meanwhile htmx and the like is the same idea that was popular 15-ish years ago, which died for good reasons.

Curious about those good reasons. Care to elaborate ?

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#102
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see a suggestion to "reinvent" the web that expands on publisher or end-user capabilities, rather than taking them away. The end user doesn't want Geminispace, they don't hate that web publishers get to control layout and design, or that sites can be more complex than even the early web allowed. They don't want to write their own clients or stylesheets, they don't want the web to only be strictly static…

> I mean if modern tech people had their way, the web would have never been anything but a bare data API on a blockchain, and no one without at least a bachelors' degree in CS or engineering would even know about it. And oh yeah, you'd need a license to publish anything. They're looking for a technical solution to a social problem. They miss the Web as a space for people only like themselves. Having to share the web…

No its not. I just want to read text based content without downloading google analytics + 20 other trackers, 5 java script libraries, 7 frameworks of some kind and 20 ads. It's inefficient. It drives obsolescence of hardware long before it is unusable (second only to gaming, but at least gaming has a user driven motivation, not abuse by tech megacorps).

Assigning a gatekeeping motivation to it is a nice strawman, but luckily not based in reality

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#103
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see a suggestion to "reinvent" the web that expands on publisher or end-user capabilities, rather than taking them away. The end user doesn't want Geminispace, they don't hate that web publishers get to control layout and design, or that sites can be more complex than even the early web allowed. They don't want to write their own clients or stylesheets, they don't want the web to only be strictly static…

> I mean if modern tech people had their way, the web would have never been anything but a bare data API on a blockchain, and no one without at least a bachelors' degree in CS or engineering would even know about it. And oh yeah, you'd need a license to publish anything. They're looking for a technical solution to a social problem. They miss the Web as a space for people only like themselves. Having to share the web…

On the other hand one should see, how the masses of normies, uneducated about how even a single web page works, keep consuming the wrong stuff, creating huge incentive for companies to ruin the web we have/had for the for the people, who value consent and freedom. Normies just keep consuming and enjoying away their own freedom and the freedom of others, by giving power in terms of money to the wrong people. We have seen it again and again with companies like FB, Netflix, Google and so on, which create a dystopia of not being in control, what is done with your data and spying on us everywhere we go on the Internet. The normies, who consume without worrying are empowering them.

So yes, it is some gate keeping, but maybe that gate keeping is justified, in order to protect our freedom.

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#104

What we need is for HTML to get going as a hypermedia again, to make the hypermedia architecture viable for a larger set of web applications. It's been stalled at anchors and forms (with only GET and POST!) for decades now. It's astounding how much we got built with just that. I'm trying to show where it could go with htmx: https://htmx.org Hypermedia (in particular the uniform interface) is what made the web special…

I have been reading a lot about HTMX and planning to develop an app in it on top of a JSON API. With that being said do you know if any open source apps that do authentication on top of a JSON API using HTMX? I’m having trouble conceptualizing the structure and flow of data from just reading the docs. Primarily around maintaining state between pages. (Looking to use JWT for authentication.)

htmx is designed to work with a HTML API. Everyone here seems to love it, I found it forces terribly complicated routing and templating and IMHO projects grow towards unmaintainable very quickly. I'm saying this as a person who really tried hard to like it.

You can perhaps use Alpine.js plus sprinkle htmx here and there, to have the best of both worlds, at least on paper. Didn't try this myself.

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#105
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SvelteKit/NuxtJS/NextJS are literally reinventing server side rendering for the client to then call the actual server to get data ... to render HTML. It's all done in one call - at least in Svelte. You can even render all this into a fully static site. Meanwhile htmx and the like is the same idea that was popular 15-ish years ago, which died for good reasons.

Curious about those good reasons. Care to elaborate ?

Maybe what was a "good reason" 15 years ago isn't anymore, namely the lack in those days of WebSockets and, if I'm correct, widespread Server Sent Events?

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#106
post #18

In theory I love the idea of a clean start for the web. I agree with the idea of a separation between "document web" and "application web". The problem, though, is that if we were to do away with the web today and invent a replacement I am entirely convinced it would be utterly corrupted by corporate interests. The "document web" would be something very much like Google AMP. Those documents will need to be indexed so…

I feel the same way and share the same concerns. However people have already experienced the open, free web. I don’t think you can take that away anymore.

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#107
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My servers should do as little as possible. Why? It’s not like they wear and tear?

One advantage of pushing the computing on the user-side is that it reduces the load on the server: less requests, less processing and smaller request sizes. Thus it reduces the bill for the developers/companies :)

The server load from a server-side rendered page vs an API call that returns JSON is... very minimal.

Unless you're building at great scale, it's such a negligible difference that it really shouldn't be part of your decision making process, IMHO.

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#108
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My servers should do as little as possible. Why? It’s not like they wear and tear?

One advantage of pushing the computing on the user-side is that it reduces the load on the server: less requests, less processing and smaller request sizes. Thus it reduces the bill for the developers/companies :)

So by spending thousands of dollars on developer time we can save dozens of dollars on server costs? ;)

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#109
post #91
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of "wouldnt it be great to have some other thing, so we can murder the rest of the web platform" is so grotesque to me, just repugnant & vile & cruel. Flash is a comedically shit technology. There's a couple animation capabilities it had that were nice & simple & people adore it endlessly for that. But Flash hated users, gave them nothing, no power (alike a native app) & was a big proprietary anti-hypermedi…

Your rant is focused so much on the actual implementation details of Flash that it misses the point that the abstract concept of a VM based application container/sandbox could have been a great thing. In fact, it was such a great idea that browser developers were forced into a pretty tough struggle to actually kill it in order to stay relevant themselves. Adobe's poor stewardship sealed the deal, not conceptual short…

Isn't that what we have? JavaScript is a VM-based sandbox. The difference is that JavaScript has more ready access to the DOM, but Flash was also able to do that, it just used JavaScript as a bridge.

Re: A clean start for the web (2020)

#110
post #91
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of "wouldnt it be great to have some other thing, so we can murder the rest of the web platform" is so grotesque to me, just repugnant & vile & cruel. Flash is a comedically shit technology. There's a couple animation capabilities it had that were nice & simple & people adore it endlessly for that. But Flash hated users, gave them nothing, no power (alike a native app) & was a big proprietary anti-hypermedi…

Your rant is focused so much on the actual implementation details of Flash that it misses the point that the abstract concept of a VM based application container/sandbox could have been a great thing. In fact, it was such a great idea that browser developers were forced into a pretty tough struggle to actually kill it in order to stay relevant themselves. Adobe's poor stewardship sealed the deal, not conceptual short…

Yes. The standard itself (the swf file format, the AVM bytecode, etc) is actually open. To their credit, Adobe has all the relevant specs on their website.
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