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Why not just have HTML generated at some earlier time? It's faster, can be cached, and does the same thing. I'm a little confused about no page transitions. I

by jamra 10y ago

Why not just have HTML generated at some earlier time? It's faster, can be cached, and does the same thing. I'm a little confused about no page transitions. I don't know why that is a problem that needs solving. Also hot reloading.

enraged_camel 10y ago
It comes down to user experience. There's a categorical difference between having to do regular transitions and full-page reloads, and no page transitions and hot reloading. The latter is more overhead from an initial bandwidth and processing perspective, but results in zero-latency interactions, which can be important. Is a JS framework the best way to achieve that? Maybe, maybe not. There are many factors to consider. I just don't think it's a matter of "this isn't a problem that needs solving."
- spdustin 10y ago
  I dunno... Reloading 10K of (likely cached in memory and compressed by server) HTML to load a new page of HTML when a user clicks a link, with a browser that respects caching headers and so doesn't bother reloading content supporting images/UI element sprite sheets/CSS/JavaScript is never the wrong thing to do with "static" sites. In many cases, it's the most right.
- virtualwhys 10y ago
  > It comes down to user experience Indeed, it does. My experience visiting SPAs is frankly one of annoyance. Somehow, with 32GB of memory, dual SSDs and an i7 extreme processor, the browser grinds to a crawl with at least 1 CPU core maxed out for however long it takes for the extraneous (to me) transition/effect to complete. As a side effect the CPU fan kicks in for my auditory pleasure. Compare that to a traditional web page where the browser only needs to handle a small fragment of html after initial page load, which typically makes for blazing fast page transitions, indistinguishable from SPA transitions. I get the benefit of offloading work to the client when scalability is an issue, but for a static blog site? Not so much, I'd say using React in this case is less about the user experience and more about the developer's.
  - jamra 10y ago
    I agree with you. Plus, if you use Cloudflare, your server may not even take the burden of the request. They will do the caching of static content for you.
  - escapee 10y ago
    > My experience visiting SPAs is frankly one of annoyance. I will echo this. SPAs can be great when done well, but my experience with them as a user suggests they're easy to do poorly.

by jamra 10y ago

enraged_camel 10y ago

It comes down to user experience. There's a categorical difference between having to do regular transitions and full-page reloads, and no page transitions and hot reloading. The latter is more overhead from an initial bandwidth and processing perspective, but results in zero-latency interactions, which can be important. Is a JS framework the best way to achieve that? Maybe, maybe not. There are many factors to consider. I just don't think it's a matter of "this isn't a problem that needs solving."

spdustin 10y ago
I dunno... Reloading 10K of (likely cached in memory and compressed by server) HTML to load a new page of HTML when a user clicks a link, with a browser that respects caching headers and so doesn't bother reloading content supporting images/UI element sprite sheets/CSS/JavaScript is never the wrong thing to do with "static" sites. In many cases, it's the most right.
virtualwhys 10y ago
> It comes down to user experience Indeed, it does. My experience visiting SPAs is frankly one of annoyance. Somehow, with 32GB of memory, dual SSDs and an i7 extreme processor, the browser grinds to a crawl with at least 1 CPU core maxed out for however long it takes for the extraneous (to me) transition/effect to complete. As a side effect the CPU fan kicks in for my auditory pleasure. Compare that to a traditional web page where the browser only needs to handle a small fragment of html after initial page load, which typically makes for blazing fast page transitions, indistinguishable from SPA transitions. I get the benefit of offloading work to the client when scalability is an issue, but for a static blog site? Not so much, I'd say using React in this case is less about the user experience and more about the developer's.
- jamra 10y ago
  I agree with you. Plus, if you use Cloudflare, your server may not even take the burden of the request. They will do the caching of static content for you.
- escapee 10y ago
  > My experience visiting SPAs is frankly one of annoyance. I will echo this. SPAs can be great when done well, but my experience with them as a user suggests they're easy to do poorly.