Comment by slashdev
4 years ago
I hate SPAs. I would never do another SPA again if it were up to me. It just adds too much mental context switching and overhead. I can develop fully server-side apps that are lighter, run faster, and at least 20% less development effort (I actually compared that for the same task: https://medium.com/@mustwin/is-react-fast-enough-bca6bef89a6). So why would I ever do an SPA again if it were up to me? I would use https://github.com/jfyne/live which is inspired by Phoenix LiveViews. This is my professional opinion, having many years of experience in both kinds of web apps.
When I was reimplementing “reset state” for a logo click I knew it should have been serverside rendering.
Template based UI programming is like going back to the year 2007. Your views should be reactive. Elm, Flutter, React, Et Cetera understand this. Having a function that takes data and returns a view is much better.
Isn't a template essentially a "function" that takes data and returns a view? I don't have much experience with UI programming but I don't really see the conceptual difference.
No, the template is usually a static file that is read into memory and served over HTTP or locally if it's a JS only site. But before being served, it's being picked at via imperative operations. And if it's really bad, then when a user presses a button it triggers some event that actually statefully changes the view itself.
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We can debate syntax but a Go or Python based template language is not conceptually any different to JSX based syntax. Both are essentially functions that take some input data and return the data formatted in HTML.
Sure, if you implement a trivial single-task app (one tiny feature of a Calendar app) with an unfriendly UI, you don't need an SPA. That doesn't prove anything.
It doesn't "prove" anything, but it's a data point, and quite a lot more thorough than your dismissive comment. If you want to make a well supported counter-argument, please be my guest. It's easy to criticize, it's harder to make a thoughtful argument.
I kind of have to agree here. There are very few times I've ever worked on a SPA and felt like throwing it all away and using the alternative.
The last time I thought about this, which admittedly was many years ago, the alternatives that I knew about were: server-side frameworks like ASP.NET MVC Razor, PHP, RoR templates, Node.js EJS, Jade (now Pug), and static HTML.
Nowadays, you can create extremely elegant and performant SPAs with tools like Next.js and Remix, so I really couldn't agree less to the OP.
This reads like a Reddit comment. Let's try to be better than that here.
Harsh. Dude ported liveview, this isn’t amateur level work.
It’s a useful brush but you can’t use it to paint everything.
I just want to clarify, I didn't create the LiveView port, but I think it's excellent work.
You're being very rude and dismissive. I may well have more SPA experience than you do. Don't make assumptions about people and then use that to dismiss something they say - we're better than that here on HN.
I am indeed (rude). You can have 100 years of experience, it doesn't make you more credible at thinking that engineers who makes choices that are different than yours as incompetent, by deeming them as mistakes. I mean, if a company wants to choose a tech stack, there are so many things to consider for that choice. Your article is just generic ideas about the fact that SPA are mistakes and SSR apps are better. You're not taking into consideration any of each industry's and company's means, priorities, specificities.
In fact, your 100 years of experience are what's hindering your ability to see how useful SPAs are. And you're resorting to that same old narrative of "it was better before". It's also the niche you decided to position yourself in to sell courses and stuff. Which makes your ideas even more suspicious as they can't be unbiased. Like in politics, they'll dogmatically say that their opponents are wrong, just because they have a "market" to preserve.
So yes, I'm rude, as much as you're inconsiderate to the vast complexity of software engineering, just to preserve your niche market.
And as you say in your website: "Hate the complexity of modern front‑end web development? I send out a short email each weekday on how to build a simpler, more resilient web. Join 13k+ others."
This is rude
Instead why don't you let us know why you think that position is incorrect rather than resorting to reddit-tier insults?
Quoting another comment to OP
"I am indeed (rude). You can have 100 years of experience, it doesn't make you more credible at thinking that engineers who makes choices that are different than yours as incompetent, by deeming them as mistakes. I mean, if a company wants to choose a tech stack, there are so many things to consider for that choice. Your article is just generic ideas about the fact that SPA are mistakes and SSR apps are better. You're not taking into consideration any of each industry's and company's means, priorities, specificities.
In fact, your 100 years of experience are what's hindering your ability to see how useful SPAs are. And you're resorting to that same old narrative of "it was better before". It's also the niche you decided to position yourself in to sell courses and stuff. Which makes your ideas even more suspicious as they can't be unbiased. Like in politics, they'll dogmatically say that their opponents are wrong, just because they have a "market" to preserve.
So yes, I'm rude, as much as you're inconsiderate to the vast complexity of software engineering, just to preserve your niche market.
And as you say in your website: "Hate the complexity of modern front‑end web development? I send out a short email each weekday on how to build a simpler, more resilient web. Join 13k+ others." "
wow you must be incredibly smart and discerning, being able to confidently make assumptions and judgments about people's lives and background based on one or two HN comments, and then dismiss them as an ignorant and incapable fool.