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When Javascript projects write "Isomorphic", what do they mean? It certainly isn't isomorphic in the usual sense in Math of a bijection between structures (cat

by jlouis 8y ago

When Javascript projects write "Isomorphic", what do they mean? It certainly isn't isomorphic in the usual sense in Math of a bijection between structures (categories), because even if it were it is a special case of some kind.

l_t 8y ago
Isomorphic in this context means the library supports running in Node.js as well as in the browser. (This is mentioned further down in the README).
uryga 8y ago
I wondered about it too! From what I read, the term seems to be controversial in the webdev community: > "From the beginning there were people opposing the term, suggesting alternatives such as monomorphic or polymorphic" [1] As I understand it, when an SPA is "isomorphic", it means it can be statically pre-rendered to some degree. This property is then used as follows: - you pre-render some html of your app server-side - when a client requests a page, send the pre-rendered html first - then, send over all your JS (React or whatever), which will take over the rendering when it's ready. [2] So "isomorphic" refers to some sort of behavioral equivalence, i.e. "you can run it server-side and you'll get the same output". Painting with broad strokes, I guess you could interpret "this app is isomorphic" as shorthand for "this app can be pre-rendered into a static form that's isomorphic to its usual dynamic form" (in roughly the same way a pure function is isomorphic to a lookup table). In reality that property would probably be too strong for most cases, but I guess it's "morally correct". --- [1] https://medium.com/@ghengeveld/isomorphism-vs-universal-javascript-4b47fb481beb https://medium.com/@ghengeveld/isomorphism-vs-universal-java... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_JavaScript#Mechanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_JavaScript#Mechan...
fka 8y ago
Simply, you can use "isomorphic" libraries both in browsers and Node.js.

by jlouis 8y ago

l_t 8y ago

Isomorphic in this context means the library supports running in Node.js as well as in the browser. (This is mentioned further down in the README).

uryga 8y ago

I wondered about it too! From what I read, the term seems to be controversial in the webdev community: > "From the beginning there were people opposing the term, suggesting alternatives such as monomorphic or polymorphic" [1] As I understand it, when an SPA is "isomorphic", it means it can be statically pre-rendered to some degree. This property is then used as follows: - you pre-render some html of your app server-side - when a client requests a page, send the pre-rendered html first - then, send over all your JS (React or whatever), which will take over the rendering when it's ready. [2] So "isomorphic" refers to some sort of behavioral equivalence, i.e. "you can run it server-side and you'll get the same output". Painting with broad strokes, I guess you could interpret "this app is isomorphic" as shorthand for "this app can be pre-rendered into a static form that's isomorphic to its usual dynamic form" (in roughly the same way a pure function is isomorphic to a lookup table). In reality that property would probably be too strong for most cases, but I guess it's "morally correct". --- [1] https://medium.com/@ghengeveld/isomorphism-vs-universal-javascript-4b47fb481beb https://medium.com/@ghengeveld/isomorphism-vs-universal-java... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_JavaScript#Mechanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_JavaScript#Mechan...

fka 8y ago

Simply, you can use "isomorphic" libraries both in browsers and Node.js.