None of my projects want to be SPAs • Hacker News Board

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#171

Post by arcticwombat » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #139

onion2k wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used the internet for 25 years I can confidently say most React apps are far smaller than most jQuery apps, mainly because jQuery apps didn't use compilers or bundlers. Hell, most didn't even use minifiers . Even ignoring that, React app sizes are getting better. Modern React apps (basically since 16.7) that are written with things like Suspense, lazy, and hooks are usually pretty small. Writing functional com…

> Modern React apps (basically since 16.7) So like, a month ago?

Didn't you know?

If it isn't less than a month old, it's "the old way" :)

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#172

Post by fouc » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

There is a slight advantage of separation in frontend & backend - writing tests for an API-only backend is so easy. On the other hand, the frontend SPA still needs tests, and I have no idea how to make that trivial yet.

P.S. If you folks want a really small react-like SPA, I recommend either https://mithril.js.org or https://riot.js.org

And you can avoid state management complexity by using a pattern like http://meiosis.js.org

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#173

Post by ageitgey » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #160

rossdavidh wrote: post #108

This may be a mean thing to say, but basically I think SPA's are massively overused, because developers want to demonstrate that they can do them. Why? Because big companies like Facebook and Google use them. Why? Because they actually are doing things that require them. 99% of the SPAs in production are things that should have been done the old Rails/Django/Laravel way, but that would not set you up as a developer w…

> I have also witnessed discussions where management admits that they want something done in an SPA so that they can show that work to their investors, as a means of getting funding to do other projects. Absolutely. This extends well beyond SPAs, too, in my experience. I recently burned part of a month explaining to my senior management chain why you don't just, literally, "do machine learning." Of course, it turns o…

I do machine learning consulting and I see the flip side of this. I get new clients reaching out asking me to "add some AI" with no specific use cases in mind other than satisfying their investors that they are "leveraging AI."

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#174

Post by tomc1985 » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #108

This may be a mean thing to say, but basically I think SPA's are massively overused, because developers want to demonstrate that they can do them. Why? Because big companies like Facebook and Google use them. Why? Because they actually are doing things that require them. 99% of the SPAs in production are things that should have been done the old Rails/Django/Laravel way, but that would not set you up as a developer w…

It isn't a mean thing to say, it's the truth, and the insanity that is modern software dev needs to have its truths spoken more often.

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#175

Post by james_s_tayler » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #162

kerkeslager wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, some people go so far as to directly claim that something is good because Google uses it. And when Google uses it, it probably IS good for solving Google's problems. But most people aren't Google and don't have Google's problems.

Ugh… We've had one of those developers. Now we're stuck with a legacy GWT¹ SPA that sucks the life out of any developer who touches it. 1: Google's abandoned webapp toolkit where you get all of the drawbacks of writing Java code with none of the benefits.

GWT ouch. Or as I call it "get with the times!"

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#176

Post by rkangel » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

I had always assumed that the move to Spa's occurred in large part due to mobile apps. A mobile app effectively has to be a client rendering of data from an API, and if you have to do that for mobile, it makes sense to do it for the Web.

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#177

Post by rkangel » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

I'm really interested in Phoenix LiveView (https://dockyard.com/blog/2018/12/12/phoenix-liveview-intera...) when it gets released. It means you have the normal simplicity of server rendered code, but then an option for interactivity (e.g. A rich form) without having to have part of your logic in a completely different place/technology.

When you start thinking about field validations and having to duplicate them client and server side, it makes even more sense.

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#178

Post by slifin » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #119

rossdavidh wrote: post #108

This may be a mean thing to say, but basically I think SPA's are massively overused, because developers want to demonstrate that they can do them. Why? Because big companies like Facebook and Google use them. Why? Because they actually are doing things that require them. 99% of the SPAs in production are things that should have been done the old Rails/Django/Laravel way, but that would not set you up as a developer w…

Yeah, some people go so far as to directly claim that something is good because Google uses it. And when Google uses it, it probably IS good for solving Google's problems. But most people aren't Google and don't have Google's problems.

Do Google still use their closure library + compiler on all their big properties? https://github.com/google/closure-library/

I'm learning Clojure at the moment, don't think I would have heard of Google Closure otherwise

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#179

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #156

freehunter wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I was arguing this exactly in a thread here about Ruby. People argue that Rails is outdated and is irrelevant for "modern web development", even though the web is not as modern as most people might think. Even what Facebook does, the only really hard part is the sheer scale they operate at. Facebook (the website) is not a single page app and other than the scale could be done in Rails with some AJAX spr…

sure, although modern browser apis mean the url bar can change in a reasonable way

What about tabs? SPA can make tabs troublesome. If I can't open a site in tabs it is broken to me.

Re: None of my projects want to be SPAs

#180

Post by GVIrish » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #108

This may be a mean thing to say, but basically I think SPA's are massively overused, because developers want to demonstrate that they can do them. Why? Because big companies like Facebook and Google use them. Why? Because they actually are doing things that require them. 99% of the SPAs in production are things that should have been done the old Rails/Django/Laravel way, but that would not set you up as a developer w…

> This may be a mean thing to say, but basically I think SPA's are massively overused, because developers want to demonstrate that they can do them.

Unfortunately this is another side effect of the broken hiring process in IT. Recruiters are scanning resumes for the hottest buzzwords, hiring managers want people who have experience with whatever is currently hyped, so developers naturally steer towards those technologies.

So a developer may even be aware it doesn't quite make sense to use a single page architecture, but they know that if they have it on their resume it'll help them make more money at the next job.

It's a whole maladaptive signaling phenomenon that arises out of organizations overvaluing the wrong things in hiring.