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Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
121–130 of 313 posts
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#122We are not going back full circle. We are facing new challenges and realizing how complex web development is. 1- There is no simple CSS start point; unless you don't want to be responsive, support mobile/tablets, add a print stylesheet. Then you have thousands of line. Time to add a pre-processor like Sass because CSS was not designed for such complex use cases. 2- There is no simple HTML either. Are you going to mem…
> because who wants to reload the page multiple times
happily, please, yes.
The browser caches pretty much everything but the HTML, so the payload is minimal. A fast SSR site is a dream compared to the myriad poorly implemented SPAs out there.
It's ridiculous going to, for example, an airline site; trying to book a flight and discovering that the damn reservation process is borked due to an uncaught exception in the latest update to the SPA (in which case the house of cards collapses, fun).
With an SSR the JS footprint is much smaller, which can lead to more stable/reliable apps.
I find the modern web to be a complete mess, but the loading spinners are nice, provided that the loading actually finishes (if it doesn't, look in the console and you'll likely find your answer in red).
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Use the right technology for what you're trying to build. Yep .. so if you want a rich responsive user experience, DON'T use any web technologies. GMail (AND Gsuite) is a perfect example of how a relatively simple concept like email can be turned into a slow, unresponsive piece of garbage.
Extreme statements aren't useful. GMail is a poorly built app, that's all. There are plenty of great examples. Both Outlook and Fastmail have fast and feature-rich email clients. Gmail was good back in the day and got carried away by project managers and feature creep. Meanwhile Google Docs continues to be a pinnacle of what you can achieve on the web.
My experience with the Outlook web app (not the "basic HTML" mode, which is perfectly usable in contrast) is the exact opposite --- it's extremely slow and consumes a ridiculous amount of memory for what it does (I've seen it take over 2GB of RAM, and this is with an account where all the emails with their attachments total less than 100MB.) When composing a message it lags so much that it will delay each keystroke by several seconds and drop keys intermittently, and I have resorted to writing in a real (native) text editor and copy-pasting. In contrast, the native client has memory usage in the dozens of MB and is far more responsive --- I've never experienced it being sluggish to that extent.
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I made a web app framework [0] for people like you (and me). It lets you use static HTML to build a web app. Data attributes store data in the page and add dynamic features (like CRUD functionality and drag and drop sorting) very easily. Plus, the whole thing is server rendered with Handlebars, so the front-end JS part isn't even required for 95% of visitors (it's only necessary if you're an admin who can edit the cu…
Interesting. How are you deploying the server side environment?
It's an open source Node.js app, so you can deploy yourself it to any host with a persistent file system. No 3rd party database required -- it uses a file-based architecture to make it easier to get started with and modify the data. Its goal is to be simpler and easier to work with than anything else out there.
There's also a built-in CLI that can deploy to our free hosting service, which is built on top of Digital Ocean.
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its performance is so horrible that even on a high spec machine with fast internet, you have plenty of time to click the "switch to plain ol html" button. Which is actually more in line with the performance I'd expect from a glorified file drawer.
Loads instantly for me on FF desktop and laptop running linux. But i have experienced what youre talking about. You either have graphics hardware support disabled or youre laptop CPU is not running in perfoance mode and has its govenor set to something like balanced or power saving mode.
I don't think it's graphics support, but I have the same experience: The vast majority of the time, gmail in firefox loads in fraction of a second, too fast to click "basic HTML" view. And I'm not on something like fiber, just basic cable internet.
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've clearly not had to work in a corporate environment on an old PC with a locked down copy of Outlook... Gawd.. now that's terrible. But yeah... I don't agree Gmail is terrible, but I'd like it to be better. Ive been on a few months after it launched, and got a service that's been reliable and stable for that long, I have to give it a lot of credit!
Outlook 2010 is fantastic
Outlook’s search function is decidedly not fantastic.
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#127My personal site is still a bunch of files served up by a cache in front of Wordpress. It'll be cool again in a couple years, I guess.
The really cool kids are just using something like Jekyll that does all the templating at publish time and you just have static files you dump onto a server.
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#128> The Dark Age - Somewhere on this path to render pages on the fly (SSR) and render pages on the client (SPA) we forgot about the performance of our webpages. We were trying to build apps. But the web is about presenting content first and foremost! Pfff - That's completely wrong. SPAs are all about performance. If you want to built a highly-interactive site, it makes sense to do the computing where it's consumed -- i…
> Says who? Everyone who isn't only on the web to try to make money. That's who. But all you for-profit types are runining it. As the browser becomes more powerful it is more important to secure it. As security becomes more important features are removed and the browser begins telling the user what they can and cannot do. And on the webmaster side it becomes infeasible for browsers to display your site or search engi…
> But all you for-profit types are runining it
As someone who loves the internet largely due to all the cool things people have made for profit, I can’t imagine how they for profit people have hurt the internet more than they have helped it.
You and I wouldn’t be talking right now if it weren’t for a company making hacker news for profit.
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#129Does that mean a new version of Microsoft Frontpage is imminent?
Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are mechanisms to charge for it. Only above a certain price point. Our financial system nor our consumer culture support micropayments yet. This effectively limits the web properties that can charge users to a small fraction, so unfortunately "just charge money" isn't the widely-available solution I wish it was yet. Hell, it's more viable to charge users for your mobile client than the backing service. It's k…
Then you dont have a sustainable business model. Why should I subsidize your failed model ?
Yet you somehow think charging content providers for using your computer when they give you free content isn’t a failed business model?