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I ask in the spirit of friendliness, is this really an issue, or is this something that feels like one? I'm hard pressed to imagine WordPress having login form

I ask in the spirit of friendliness, is this really an issue, or is this something that feels like one? I'm hard pressed to imagine WordPress having login forms done in a JS Framework, and that's a big chunk of the web. If they are doing that, then you're right, it's totally unnecessary. But I'm guessing the folks at Automattic are optimizing this stuff for their clients (but I concede that I could be wrong here). As far as blogs in these tech stacks, if they're developer blogs then that makes total sense. A dev blogging about React would probably choose React for their blog since that's a live production laboratory for any React code. I had a website in Ruby on Rails for years because I was a Rails dev and it was easy to try stuff out. Are there any concrete stats on actual mismatch? Do we know how many recipe blogs are using Angular or React? My guess is their bloat is from tons of scripts and not from a developer using a tool that is wrong for the job. That bloat is at its heart a UI/business problem. Analytics, pop-ups, sharing links, referrals and that entire class of web objects IMO opinion are UI/business concerns, and they'll continue as long as folks find those things valuable.

Touche 7y ago
Yes, it's a real issue. There's even a VC funded startup that specializes in a React based blogging tool: https://www.gatsbyjs.org/ https://www.gatsbyjs.org/. If you work as a web developer there's just no denying it; using a SPA framework has become the default for all new projects, full stop, regardless of the type of project. For data, look up often reported stats on JS size.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  When did progressive enhancement become a bad thing? Gatsby generates static files with functional markup, then layers React on top of that for an even better experience. Try loading e.g. https://overreacted.io https://overreacted.io with JavaScript disabled. It works perfectly.
  - Touche 7y ago
    Pick any article on that page. Scroll to the bottom and refresh. In a tradition site the browser would remember your scroll position. Here it doesn't, likely due to using client-side routing in JavaScript. So instead you're taken to the start of the article each time. It's this type of detail that's really difficult to get right when you choose to opt-out of decades of iteration and do everything yourself.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      Sure, but "not retaining scroll position on refresh" is hardly a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
      - Touche 7y ago
        You can't dismiss this bug like that. Having multiple tabs open and having those tabs get taken out of memory and needing to refresh is a very common thing to happen. This is a bad bug for this particular website. Now, you said that by layering a SPA on top that an "even better experience" is provided. What exactly is the better experience? Just navigating around the site a bit I don't see anything particularly dynamic about it at all.
        jakelazaroff 7y ago
        Actually, I just disabled JavaScript and tried reloading on a page, and that bug happens anyway. Not sure why that's happening, but it's not JavaScript. And considering it doesn't inhibit access to the content at all, "bad bug" is a gross overstatement. As for the better experience: faster loading and dark theme?
- tuesdayrain 7y ago
  Gatsby is an amazing developer experience, definitely not something I would use as an example of an "issue".

Touche 7y ago

Yes, it's a real issue. There's even a VC funded startup that specializes in a React based blogging tool: https://www.gatsbyjs.org/ https://www.gatsbyjs.org/. If you work as a web developer there's just no denying it; using a SPA framework has become the default for all new projects, full stop, regardless of the type of project. For data, look up often reported stats on JS size.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
When did progressive enhancement become a bad thing? Gatsby generates static files with functional markup, then layers React on top of that for an even better experience. Try loading e.g. https://overreacted.io https://overreacted.io with JavaScript disabled. It works perfectly.
- Touche 7y ago
  Pick any article on that page. Scroll to the bottom and refresh. In a tradition site the browser would remember your scroll position. Here it doesn't, likely due to using client-side routing in JavaScript. So instead you're taken to the start of the article each time. It's this type of detail that's really difficult to get right when you choose to opt-out of decades of iteration and do everything yourself.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    Sure, but "not retaining scroll position on refresh" is hardly a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
    - Touche 7y ago
      You can't dismiss this bug like that. Having multiple tabs open and having those tabs get taken out of memory and needing to refresh is a very common thing to happen. This is a bad bug for this particular website. Now, you said that by layering a SPA on top that an "even better experience" is provided. What exactly is the better experience? Just navigating around the site a bit I don't see anything particularly dynamic about it at all.
      - jakelazaroff 7y ago
        Actually, I just disabled JavaScript and tried reloading on a page, and that bug happens anyway. Not sure why that's happening, but it's not JavaScript. And considering it doesn't inhibit access to the content at all, "bad bug" is a gross overstatement. As for the better experience: faster loading and dark theme?
tuesdayrain 7y ago
Gatsby is an amazing developer experience, definitely not something I would use as an example of an "issue".