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> The parent is rightfully pointing out that most websites are documents and have no need for client side rendering or interactivity. Where does that html come

> The parent is rightfully pointing out that most websites are documents and have no need for client side rendering or interactivity. Where does that html come from, then? Do you honestly believe all pages could be static html+css served from some bucket? Or do they need to be rendered by a programm running on a server? Because once you start talking about servers generating pages then all this talk about JavaScript frameworks boils down to arguing where the complexity should be in place A or B.

pjmlp 13d ago
It comes from a server designed at CERN.
Spivak 13d ago
Yes? Users often prefer a nice GUI but CMSs are effectively what you describe and run the majority of content oriented sites. Static site generators are just the dev-centric version of that. The more common situation is that you're generating pages on the server and shipping a massive JS bundle just to display what could have been rendered once. But even given your position you see no difference between shipping the user a binary and shipping source code plus a compiler in terms of the user's experience? Surely the existence of server side react points to the server doing the initial lift being an improvement.
- locknitpicker 13d ago
  > Yes? Users often prefer a nice GUI but CMSs are effectively what you describe and run the majority of content oriented sites. I don't think you understood my question. I stressed the fact that complaining about the complexity of a page implemented with a JavaScript framework is a red herring, because said complexity doesn't go away by moving it to a server. And the old "dynamic HTML" approach is not easier to maintain and developm. By far. In the meantime, what goes away is performance and perceived performance. Your dynamic HTML pages need to travel all around the world until clients see an update, and a page reload is far heavier and time consuming than doing a fetch to get data. Try to ask yourself this simple question: why do software engineers bother with JavaScript frameworks? Do you think everyone has absolutely no idea about what they are doing?
  - andrekandre 12d ago
    > said complexity doesn't go away by moving it to a server. complexity for the client or for the developer? > why do software engineers bother with JavaScript frameworks? because the dev cycle is much faster for the developer than most backend rendering stuff?

pjmlp 13d ago

It comes from a server designed at CERN.

Spivak 13d ago

Yes? Users often prefer a nice GUI but CMSs are effectively what you describe and run the majority of content oriented sites. Static site generators are just the dev-centric version of that. The more common situation is that you're generating pages on the server and shipping a massive JS bundle just to display what could have been rendered once. But even given your position you see no difference between shipping the user a binary and shipping source code plus a compiler in terms of the user's experience? Surely the existence of server side react points to the server doing the initial lift being an improvement.

locknitpicker 13d ago
> Yes? Users often prefer a nice GUI but CMSs are effectively what you describe and run the majority of content oriented sites. I don't think you understood my question. I stressed the fact that complaining about the complexity of a page implemented with a JavaScript framework is a red herring, because said complexity doesn't go away by moving it to a server. And the old "dynamic HTML" approach is not easier to maintain and developm. By far. In the meantime, what goes away is performance and perceived performance. Your dynamic HTML pages need to travel all around the world until clients see an update, and a page reload is far heavier and time consuming than doing a fetch to get data. Try to ask yourself this simple question: why do software engineers bother with JavaScript frameworks? Do you think everyone has absolutely no idea about what they are doing?
- andrekandre 12d ago
  > said complexity doesn't go away by moving it to a server. complexity for the client or for the developer? > why do software engineers bother with JavaScript frameworks? because the dev cycle is much faster for the developer than most backend rendering stuff?