← Back to context

Comment by troupo

11 hours ago

> It doesn’t have its own templating syntax

What do you think hx-get and hx-trigger="input changed delay:1s" are? Standard browser attributes? Standard browser functionality and behaviour? Standard events syntax?

> It doesn’t require the backend to ‘conform’ to anything,

Just one of the quotes from the docs: "You would need to check on the server side for the HX-Request header to differentiate between an htmx-driven and a regular request, to determine exactly what to render to the client."

> I’m afraid you’re very confused!

I'm afraid I'm not

14 comments

troupo

Reply
yawaramin  7 hours ago

> What do you think hx-get and hx-trigger

Hx-attributes are not a new ‘templating syntax’, they’re custom attributes with a simple DSL for describing triggers and swaps. You can prefix them with ‘data-‘ if you want and they will be 100% standards-conformant. HTML itself is full of these little in-attribute DSLs–look up the standard ‘autocomplete’ attribute:

    <textarea autocomplete="shipping street-address"></textarea>

When people complain about this stuff, they just reveal they don’t know HTML.

> …from the docs: "You would need to check on the server side for the HX-Request header…

Yes, this is how HTTP content negotiation works. The client sends headers to the server describing what it wants and the server sends headers describing what it gives. I hope you’re not suggesting that htmx invented this technique. It’s kinda funny to suggest that htmx forces servers to ‘conform’ to something when most of today’s JS frameworks do server-side rendering only on JavaScript server runtimes.

  • troupo  7 hours ago

    > Hx-attributes are not a new ‘templating syntax’,

    They are. If you look at how they are processed by HTMX itself.

    > they’re custom attributes with a simple DSL

    At least you agree that it's a custom DSL

    > You can prefix them with ‘data-‘ if you want and they will be 100% standards-conformant.

    It doesn't matter if they are "standards compliant". The browser has literally no idea what they are, and what that DSL is. HTMX parses them, parses the DSL etc.

    Turn off Javascript and whatch how this beautiful standard-compliant stuff turns inert (or doesn't even load).

    > Yes, this is how HTTP content negotiation works. The client sends headers to the server describing what it wants

    That's not how content negotiation works. Standard content negotiation does not require custom headers, or the client needing to parse this header and be aware of anything to differentiate requests.

    There's are literal Content-Type and Accept standard headers. And yet HTMX invents its own flavor.

    > most of today’s JS frameworks do server-side rendering only on JavaScript server runtimes.

    Most of which AFAIR don't require custom headers.

    • yawaramin  6 hours ago

      You must be joking, React Flight Protocol for RSC is literally a new RPC system that comes with its own set of brand-new vulnerabilities. But sure, adding a couple of HTTP headers, which were designed for exactly this kind of use case (adding metadata to requests and responses), is a bridge too far.

      1 reply →

tailscaler2026  11 hours ago

That's how progressive enhancement works. The website should work fine if JS is disabled. Then it's faster via htmx if JS is enabled, and more so if the backend is tuned as well.

  • troupo  10 hours ago

    None of the things HTMX adds will work. Which is easy to test by just turning off Javascript on most (any?) examples or sites using HTMX.

    Because none of that is standard, none of that is understood by browsers, and requires HTMX to work.

    Which is also besides the point of discussing whether or not HTMX invents its own templating, DSL, and requires the server to be aware of HTMX to to work properly.