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> It may be interesting to recall that initially the only way to output HTML was by `document.write()` using strings (which was pretty declarative). I think pe
by matwood 7y ago
> It may be interesting to recall that initially the only way to output HTML was by `document.write()` using strings (which was pretty declarative).
I think people also forget how slow a lot of JS was really until V8. I remember having server code generate JS arrays (creating them from an xhr request was too slow), that in turn would document.write (manipulating the DOM was also super slow) data on the client to make the web page 'interactive'. It was messy.
- masswerk 7y agoIt wasn't just JS, you could actually watch JPEG images becoming decoded, esp. on a computer which wasn't exactly new. Layout of complex markup could take seconds, reflowing and repainting was out of question. JS as an interpreteded language was accordingly much slower than native code. There was no way to do fast, declarative HTML in JS – and not much of a use case for this. (For much the same reasons, there was no way to have optimizing client-side JS engines, even if JS hadn't been just in its infancy.)
- pjmlp 7y agoAh, the render one scanline at a time effect in analog modems. I even used to disable images and just selectively download them.
- BerislavLopac 7y ago> creating them from an xhr request was too slow You had XHR? Luxury! We had to embed a 1x1 px Java applet to communicate with the server without reloading the page! ;)
- matwood 7y agoHaha...at the time I was writing internal business applications where everyone could be forced to use IE. Another thing people forget is that at one time IE was the best browser. It was because that IE had such a lead it stagnated and we ended up in the IE6 situation.