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This too shall pass (said with fingers crossed). Single Page Apps For the vast majority of content are such a horrible user experience, I have to believe the b

by sago 9y ago

This too shall pass (said with fingers crossed). Single Page Apps For the vast majority of content are such a horrible user experience, I have to believe the backlash will be swift and severe. They will be condemned to the bad ideas pile with table based layouts and Flash sites, with the latter, they share a lot of similarities. But despite my confidence, I confess I've been mystified why they ever took off at all. They seem so clearly an impedance mismatch with the kind of static-ish content the web is really rather good at, I didn't expect them to take off the way they have. I understand fashion, and I understand when SPAs might be useful, but still. Why? (a genuine question).

hellofunk 9y ago
Well, we can thank companies like Google, and the powerful role that email ended up playing in our world, for the simple fact that web-based email took off, and therefore email clients that ran on web pages became not only important but also the key to the bottom line for some companies. And when those companies then invested billions of dollars into browser technology to make it an even better platform for their content, and increased the power of JS and what a browser can do, then writing complex applications became inevitable. And the trend only continues, with the wave of virtual DOM technologies that have taken what used to be a static-based layout engine and made it quite dynamic. As for popularity, is there any other competing medium that allows an app to pretty much instantly run anywhere regardless of platform without user installation? No. And for that reason, they will always remain an intriguing way to distribute software. Just as many of the first apps for iphoneOS ten years ago were silly and stupid, a lot of it boils down to taste. Not all web apps are worth it, but so many are! Tastes will evolve for both users and developers.
cousin_it 9y ago
Because animated transitions make the manager proud.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  I hope you're not serious. When we talk about an SPA, we're not talking about how it looks or animates. We're talking about functionality, really.
  - cousin_it 9y ago
    I am 100% serious, speaking from two decades of webdev experience for >10 employers. When people advocate SPAs, they usually talk about responsiveness to the user, increased engagement and other such things, but the true underlying reason is always the same and it's exactly what I said. Hard page reloads make the manager feel like their product is janky. Animated transitions make the manager proud. Every manager.
  - xxs 9y ago
    Do you remember back in the older days of IE4/IE5 there used to be filters, page transitions, DXImageTransform (do I recall it right?)... a totally cool tech and a selling point.
zeveb 9y ago
> They will be condemned to the bad ideas pile with table based layouts and Flash sites, with the latter, they share a lot of similarities. That's what I don't get about SPAs' popularity: they're just as bad as Flash sites, but at least with Flash everything was self-contained, and very, very few people tried to do everything in Flash (and those who did were roundly mocked for it). But now it's 2017, and every time one comments 'why does Blogger require me to execute code in order to view text & images?' some kid will say, 'hey grandpa, get off the Internet so the rest of us can get work done!' The mass adoption of HTML+CSS+JavaScript is, I'll grant, a massive leap forward in terms of pragmatism but a massive leap backward in terms of privacy, security, usability, performance and sanity.
pdimitar 9y ago
1. Advertisements. 2. Analytics. 3. Cool visual effects. Companies wanted to know more about how their websites are used. A noble goal for sure but nowadays it's a blatant surveillance.

by sago 9y ago

hellofunk 9y ago

Well, we can thank companies like Google, and the powerful role that email ended up playing in our world, for the simple fact that web-based email took off, and therefore email clients that ran on web pages became not only important but also the key to the bottom line for some companies. And when those companies then invested billions of dollars into browser technology to make it an even better platform for their content, and increased the power of JS and what a browser can do, then writing complex applications became inevitable. And the trend only continues, with the wave of virtual DOM technologies that have taken what used to be a static-based layout engine and made it quite dynamic. As for popularity, is there any other competing medium that allows an app to pretty much instantly run anywhere regardless of platform without user installation? No. And for that reason, they will always remain an intriguing way to distribute software. Just as many of the first apps for iphoneOS ten years ago were silly and stupid, a lot of it boils down to taste. Not all web apps are worth it, but so many are! Tastes will evolve for both users and developers.

cousin_it 9y ago

Because animated transitions make the manager proud.

hellofunk 9y ago
I hope you're not serious. When we talk about an SPA, we're not talking about how it looks or animates. We're talking about functionality, really.
- cousin_it 9y ago
  I am 100% serious, speaking from two decades of webdev experience for >10 employers. When people advocate SPAs, they usually talk about responsiveness to the user, increased engagement and other such things, but the true underlying reason is always the same and it's exactly what I said. Hard page reloads make the manager feel like their product is janky. Animated transitions make the manager proud. Every manager.
- xxs 9y ago
  Do you remember back in the older days of IE4/IE5 there used to be filters, page transitions, DXImageTransform (do I recall it right?)... a totally cool tech and a selling point.

zeveb 9y ago

> They will be condemned to the bad ideas pile with table based layouts and Flash sites, with the latter, they share a lot of similarities. That's what I don't get about SPAs' popularity: they're just as bad as Flash sites, but at least with Flash everything was self-contained, and very, very few people tried to do everything in Flash (and those who did were roundly mocked for it). But now it's 2017, and every time one comments 'why does Blogger require me to execute code in order to view text & images?' some kid will say, 'hey grandpa, get off the Internet so the rest of us can get work done!' The mass adoption of HTML+CSS+JavaScript is, I'll grant, a massive leap forward in terms of pragmatism but a massive leap backward in terms of privacy, security, usability, performance and sanity.

pdimitar 9y ago

1. Advertisements. 2. Analytics. 3. Cool visual effects. Companies wanted to know more about how their websites are used. A noble goal for sure but nowadays it's a blatant surveillance.