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Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

macwright.com

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Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#51

Post by [deleted] »

Raed667 wrote: post #45
cmckn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gray boxes simulating text This is one of the worst UI trends in the last decade. Mock content gives devs permission to ship slow APIs, and they can even look janky when your API is too fast. It feels like watching a half hour of trailers before the movie starts.

You want to know why they exist? Because of Google Core Web Vitals metrics! CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) can go to zero if you place proper skeletons. I still prefer it to content jumping around when the API response is done.

[deleted]

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#52

Post by [deleted] »

zabzonk wrote: post #49
nemothekid wrote: post #24

One thing I've seen happen again and again in a lot of technologies is a "framework gravity". A lot of people see this as engineers just wanting to work on "hype" technology but I think what is actually happening is a reflection of global engineering time. React is great for SPAs. Most large companies are working on honest-to-god SPAs. By extension most engineers are working on SPAs. So most tooling is created for SP…

Sorry, what's a "SPA" - can't seem to find it by Googling.

[deleted]

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#53

Post by Zababa »

Raed667 wrote: post #45
cmckn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gray boxes simulating text This is one of the worst UI trends in the last decade. Mock content gives devs permission to ship slow APIs, and they can even look janky when your API is too fast. It feels like watching a half hour of trailers before the movie starts.

You want to know why they exist? Because of Google Core Web Vitals metrics! CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) can go to zero if you place proper skeletons. I still prefer it to content jumping around when the API response is done.

This is a really good solution to a problem that shouldn't even exist.

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#54

Post by grzm »

zabzonk wrote: post #49
nemothekid wrote: post #24

One thing I've seen happen again and again in a lot of technologies is a "framework gravity". A lot of people see this as engineers just wanting to work on "hype" technology but I think what is actually happening is a reflection of global engineering time. React is great for SPAs. Most large companies are working on honest-to-god SPAs. By extension most engineers are working on SPAs. So most tooling is created for SP…

Sorry, what's a "SPA" - can't seem to find it by Googling.

Single-page application

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-page_application

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#55

Post by felipellrocha »

zabzonk wrote: post #49
nemothekid wrote: post #24

One thing I've seen happen again and again in a lot of technologies is a "framework gravity". A lot of people see this as engineers just wanting to work on "hype" technology but I think what is actually happening is a reflection of global engineering time. React is great for SPAs. Most large companies are working on honest-to-god SPAs. By extension most engineers are working on SPAs. So most tooling is created for SP…

Sorry, what's a "SPA" - can't seem to find it by Googling.

It’s like when you’re stressed and need to relax, and you need a webpage done. So you meditate, then crank out code

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#56

Post by SCUSKU »

zabzonk wrote: post #49
nemothekid wrote: post #24

One thing I've seen happen again and again in a lot of technologies is a "framework gravity". A lot of people see this as engineers just wanting to work on "hype" technology but I think what is actually happening is a reflection of global engineering time. React is great for SPAs. Most large companies are working on honest-to-god SPAs. By extension most engineers are working on SPAs. So most tooling is created for SP…

Sorry, what's a "SPA" - can't seem to find it by Googling.

Single page application.

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#57

Post by zozbot234 »

Zababa wrote: post #28
nemothekid wrote: post #24

One thing I've seen happen again and again in a lot of technologies is a "framework gravity". A lot of people see this as engineers just wanting to work on "hype" technology but I think what is actually happening is a reflection of global engineering time. React is great for SPAs. Most large companies are working on honest-to-god SPAs. By extension most engineers are working on SPAs. So most tooling is created for SP…

I see a big difference between Hadoop and React though: React pushes the costs on the client. This is something that's not often mentionned, but with a traditional SPA, a good part of your code runs on the client, which is server costs you don't have to pay. I don't know if it's something that people do consciously to reduce costs and just never talk about, or if it's an unintended consequence, but it's here. If your…

The "server cost" of traditional SSR is heavily overrated. It can be made small enough to be basically a rounding error compared to everything else your backend is doing. Even more so since retrofitting SSR onto a JS single-page application is quite inefficient, so you end up paying for that load many times over.

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#58

Post by lwansbrough »

young_unixer wrote: post #20

I have a very good idea of how the web used to work 10 years ago. But when I try to learn Modern Javascript frameworks, the tutorials rarely do a good job of explaining that they won't teach me how to create a normal, traditional website, or if it's even possible to create a normal website with the framework. They simply assume that the modern way is the standard way. I want a modern alternative to PHP, but the JS co…

I can't imagine a more suitable recommendation than ASP.NET 5.

Re: Second-guessing the modern web (2020)

#60

Post by Jakobeha »

nemothekid wrote: post #24

One thing I've seen happen again and again in a lot of technologies is a "framework gravity". A lot of people see this as engineers just wanting to work on "hype" technology but I think what is actually happening is a reflection of global engineering time. React is great for SPAs. Most large companies are working on honest-to-god SPAs. By extension most engineers are working on SPAs. So most tooling is created for SP…

> "framework gravity"

I see this a lot. Especially with languages - of course I would love to write a big app in Haskell, but the tooling for Java / JavaScript / C# is just so much better (before Swift / Kotlin it was so much worse).

And what is happening with React is just like what happened with those languages: all of the big drawbacks are getting their workarounds. Bundle splitting and server-side rendering address large bundles and long load times, as the author mentions. Of course they have their own issues, but as time goes on I'm sure more workarounds will be created.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 5 years, React's drawbacks don't fully go away, but they're a lot less. Although I'd rather like React gone too, personally I really don't like using it.

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