JavaScript is great. I love using it, and it does amazing things. But maybe it’s time we stop repeating these same patterns of development over and over again. Maybe we can use JavaScript more responsibly, and focus more effort on HTML and CSS.
I don’t agree with all of these takes-of-varying-spiciness, but Rich Harris is always worth paying attention to.
I guess the biggest criticism here is that it feels like people who believe in the superiority of single page applications and the entire ecosystem focus more on developer experience (DX) than user experience. That sounds like a dangerous blanket statement, but after all these years, I never had the feeling that the argument “better DX leads to better UX” was ever true. It’s nothing more than a justification for the immense complexity and potentially significantly worse UX. And even if the core argument isn’t DX, other arguments like scalability, maintainability, competitive ability, easier recruiting (“everyone uses React”), and cost effectiveness, in my experience, only sound good, but rarely hold up to their promises.
Imagine the web is a storefront, React is a hot dog car, and here’s Create React App dressed as a hot dog:
HTML is the cornerstone of the web — so why does creating a “React app” produce an empty HTML file? Why are we not taking advantage of the most basic feature of the web—the ability to see content quickly before all the interactive code loads? Why do we wait to start loading the data until after all the client-side code has finished loading?
I’ve smelt the same change in the wind that Chris describes here—there’s finally a reckoning happening in the world of JavaScript frameworks and single page apps.
I’ve seen the pendulum swing back and forth many times over my years building on the web. I too feel like there’s something in the air right now, and people are finally acknowledging that most single page apps are crap.
But Brad makes the interesting point that, because they were incubated when profligate client-side JavaScript was all the rage, web components may have ended up inheriting the wrong mindset:
So now the world of web components has egg on its face because the zeitgeist at the time of its design didn’t have such a strong focus on SSR/HTML-first/ progressive enhancement. Had web components been designed in the current zeitgeist, things would almost certainly be different.
At the risk of grossly oversimplifying things, I propose that the core of the debate can be summed up by these truisms:
- The best SPA is better than the best MPA.
- The average SPA is worse than the average MPA.
I’ve got the same hunch as Nolan:
There’s a feeling in the air. A zeitgeist. SPAs are no longer the cool kids they once were 10 years ago.
And I think he’s right to frame the appeal of single page apps in terms of control (even if that control comes at the expense of performance and first-load user experience).
The headline is a little misleading because if you follow this advice, your multi-page apps will be much much faster than single page apps, especially when you include that initial page load of a single page app.
Here’s a quick high-level summary of what I do…
That’s an excellent recipe for success right there!
If there are no specific reasons to build a single-page application, I will go with a traditional server-rendered architecture every day of the week.
Harsh (but fair) assessment of the performance costs of doing everything on the client side.