Comment by hi_hi

20 hours ago

> it's completely unlocked new ways of building software for the web, especially if you use a server-side templating language.

Could you please expand on this point. As a “greybeard” web dev from the 2000’s era, I’d like to understand if your “unlocking” is my “that’s how it originally worked, get of my lawn”?

2 comments

hi_hi

masfoobar 13 hours ago

Yes - how you likely built websites in 2000's era (possibly with Classic ASP or PHP4 .. maybe Perl?) is the sort of websites we are addressing with HTMX.

It's bringing us back to that sort of web development but with modern tools and technology.

For the server side, we can use modern languages with better templating for html.

For the client, with htmx, you can do a lot of javascript such as ajax calls (load, trigger, etc) without writing javascript. With htmx you specify what you want to do inside html attributes.

So my actual javascript code ends up minimal.

I have been doing website dev since 2008. I've worked with PHP, C# (WebForms, MVC), a bit of python... not to mention maintaining an old website in Classic ASP.

2008-2010 I used C# WebForms. I didn't like it, but we still kept it simple, returning data from server side to html.

2010 I started to enjoy jQuery and saw potential returning data. Opened the door to provide more options for webdev.

Around 2014, I've started disagreeing with "modern website development" learning knockoutjs, requirejs, to eventually angularjs, npm's, etc. Sure, I learned and pushed forward but websites seemed to become more a chore and bloat overtime. Personally, I've not really invested in React.

I was starting to go round full circle to the 'old ways' just with modern tech. To me, htmx just makes webdev even more smoother.

aktau 17 hours ago

I have the same question. It seems like a decent amount of posters here don't require (non-standard) interactivity. Plain HTML+CSS (perhaps via static site generators) would work.

It made me think about the Javascript present on my blog. The site works fine without JS (syntax high-lighting is pre-baked server-side).

There is some optional JS enhancement:

  - MathJax is used for turning LaTeX expressions into nice graphics on the client-side. A search reveals this could be done on the server-side, but I'd need to deal with the node.js ecosystem.
  - PJAX is enabled [1]. This is completely optional, but it noticeably made page navigation faster (feel instant), especially when navigating between pages already visited (forwards/backwards).

UPDATE: Reading https://triptychproject.org/, it seems like what PJAX does is item #3: "Partial page replacement"

[1]: The library is at https://www.aktau.be/js/pjax-standalone.js. It is invoked at the end of <body>:

  pjax.connect({
    "container": "content",
    "complete": function() { MathJax.typesetPromise(); }, // Reload mathjax after a pjax load.
    "autoAnalytics": false
  });