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RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

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Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#111

Post by brabel »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #107

This is a bad idea. If you look at the list of advantages to doing this only 1 is user-centric (things would be reactive). The rest are all related to how it makes development easier. When you choose a developer-centric workflow your users will suffer. You only have to look at the numerous server to SPA conversions to see how consistently bad of a choice this tends to be; Reddit is a big and obvious example. They cou…

It's not just a bad idea... it's a horrible, dangerous idea. All of their points can be easily addressed with a static site generator or just some CMS that lets you write pages using templates instead of just pure HTML. That's absolutely declarative, a lot more than a JS-framework based app. The only point that would be missing is the reactive part as you mention: but who the hell expects a wiki to be reactive?! I expect it to be as close as possible to the printed version! A Wiki is NOT a web app!

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#112

Post by 112 »

z0mbie42 wrote: post #13
112 wrote: post #5

I've loved Vue for a long time, worked two years with it almost daily, but right now I avoid it as much as I can, as I can't stand working with JavaScript without TypeScript. The TypeScript support in the current version of Vue is crap, and the simplest things, such as creating a (typed) component library, are hard and require numerous hacks. If I were to use something that lacks TypeScript support, it would be Svelt…

I would love to know why are you saying this. I use Vue2 + Typescript, and for me it works great! Even Auto-completion works.

It's OK for the most common scenarios, I didn't comment on the regular "build a web app" case, but more complicated ones. I think @vue/cli is very nice, but I've had many issues dealing with the magic behind it, so much that it became easier to swap vue-cli-service with rollup and custom setups.

I'm sure Vue3 will fix all this, and it will be awesome. Very much looking forward to it

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#113

Post by bregma »

baybal2 wrote: post #23
112 wrote: post #5

I've loved Vue for a long time, worked two years with it almost daily, but right now I avoid it as much as I can, as I can't stand working with JavaScript without TypeScript. The TypeScript support in the current version of Vue is crap, and the simplest things, such as creating a (typed) component library, are hard and require numerous hacks. If I were to use something that lacks TypeScript support, it would be Svelt…

A reverse situation here. I deal with strict no typescript policy, so besides a problem of finding typescript devs, we have a problem of having to "de-typescript" a lot of 3rd party code. Typescript has a lot of adoption within with ex-Java devs, and with that comes a lot of "Java-think." It's hard for these people to adapt to not doing things "the Java way" and vice versa. And another part of the problem is that peo…

To be fair, cargo-cult programming is a scourge in any domain. Since the cult many folks started with when they took their college (or free online) programming course was Java, all cargo looks like Java.

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#114

Post by 112 »

inertiatic wrote: post #53
baybal2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does removing typescript help you? https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues Please count the number of open bugs JS tooling is already an enormous jenga tower as it is, with tooling breakages eating a double digit of developer time. Adding typescript on top of that would be the real madness. Typescript will not help us a dime with type checking for most of devs we hire are long past the stage when typing…

>Typescript will not help us a dime with type checking for most of devs we hire are long past the stage when typing errors are a thing for them. Who are these mythical people? Do they just magically decipher what interface an argument conforms to? What methods are accessible on a returned result from any random library they're using?

These mythical people are dinosaurs that have lost (or never had) their love for the work they do, and are not interested in improving.

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#115

Post by manigandham »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #97
oefrha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can mix and match traditional server-rendered content and JS framework (in this case Vue)-rendered components on the same page (not considering SSR here). Going full SPA means using the latter exclusively.

You can easily do that with React too. In fact, that's how Facebook first used it, using it for just the chatbox (or something) with the rest of the page as it was.

React with JSX means you can easily mount a component into an element, but you can't easily add interactivity to all of the existing HTML on the page as delivered by the server.

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#116

Post by marcus_holmes »

k__ wrote: post #93
jeroenhd wrote: post #87

What does this mean for Wikimedia? Will they extend file uploaders and such with some fancier animations and code or will Wikimedia turn into another one of these God-awful Javascript applications running an HTML renderer inside the browser's HTML renderer? Don't get me wrong, Javascript web applications have their place, but Wikimedia is a website and not a web application. Will Vue and React work on 2G cell phones…

I'm a React fanboy, but I have to admit, the Svelte performance and code size is impressive. Maybe that would be a feasible way to get a modern developer experience without the bloat?

One of their criteria is widespread adoption. Svelte isn't there yet. One day it probably will be, but today is not that day.

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#117

Post by marcus_holmes »

t0astbread wrote: post #100
jeroenhd wrote: post #87

What does this mean for Wikimedia? Will they extend file uploaders and such with some fancier animations and code or will Wikimedia turn into another one of these God-awful Javascript applications running an HTML renderer inside the browser's HTML renderer? Don't get me wrong, Javascript web applications have their place, but Wikimedia is a website and not a web application. Will Vue and React work on 2G cell phones…

The proposal stresses the need for Server-Side Rendering so I suppose they're thinking about this.

No idea why you were downvoted - this is the answer to that question

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#118

Post by wildpeaks »

sdan wrote: post #6
eknkc wrote: post #4

Well I guess you can not go wrong with either React or Vue at this point as they have mature communities. However I feel like while React is just fantastic on its corner, Svelte seems like a better built Vue than Vue. It lacks the community but technically feels like a refinement and enhancement of Vue’s ideas. I wish it would gain more traction.

+1 on Svelte. Seems like the better/faster option.

I was tempted by Svelte for a while, but in the end Preact remained the best fit for our needs because the output filesize grows slower with Preact than Svelte.

I like keeping things small because it delays having to add complexity (and simple is easier to maintain, especially when you have better things to do) and saves on bandwidth.

Of course I'll keep evaluating new versions as they come (given nothing is sacred in my pipelines), so that might change in the future.

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#119

Post by manigandham »

idoubtit wrote: post #71
manigandham wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These directives take less than a day to learn. 99% of the time it's far easier to write HTML tags with data and event binding directives than hack around with JSX and passing all those props. You can also use JSX with Vue if you want. Just add a render() function to the component. That's what happens anyway when you use a normal template, the Vue compiler turns it into a render function the same way JSX is compiled…

Using Vue's pseudo-HTML directives might be easier for many cases, but it is less powerful than JavaScript. In some cases, these restrictions leads to workarounds or rewrites. I agree with the grand-poster that the added value is controversial. As for JSX with Vue, it's clearly a second class citizen. For instance, last I checked, JSX + TypeScript was broken, though both are officially documented with Vue.

Yea, the 1% of the time you need that extra control then you can easily use JS render function or JSX. The documentation covers all of this: https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/render-function.html

Re: RFC: Adopt a modern JavaScript framework for use with MediaWiki

#120

Post by marcus_holmes »

112 wrote: post #5

I've loved Vue for a long time, worked two years with it almost daily, but right now I avoid it as much as I can, as I can't stand working with JavaScript without TypeScript. The TypeScript support in the current version of Vue is crap, and the simplest things, such as creating a (typed) component library, are hard and require numerous hacks. If I were to use something that lacks TypeScript support, it would be Svelt…

I use Vue without a compile step (I abuse Go's templating engine to achieve this). Mostly to avoid the security nightmare of Webpack's 434583593e4735683 dependencies (and most of the other options are not much better) so Typescript is not an option. I love that I can do this with Vue (I can't with React).
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