6 ms·

SPAs make web resources impossible to index or link to - by definition, they do not contain "pages". OP failed to mention this at all. For me, this is the kille

SPAs make web resources impossible to index or link to - by definition, they do not contain "pages". OP failed to mention this at all. For me, this is the killer "anti" posture. Hyperlinks are the defining feature of the WWW; that people put resources on the WWW that can't be linked to, is cause for regret.

ngrilly 5y ago
It used to be impossible to link to specific page in a SPA without using hashes in the URL, but this problem has been solved years ago, and all modern browsers support it.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  What's a "specific page" in the context of discussing single-page applications?
  - hbn 5y ago
    If you go to example.com/user/jim in your browser, it'll navigate to (presumably) the profile for the user with the handle "jim" Maybe I don't understand what you're asking. Browsers these days have functionality that enables SPAs to navigate between URLs, push/pop to and from the back history, etc. without full page reloads.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      Well, example.com/user/jim looks to me like a Unique Resource Locator. If that's right, then what I'll get is a "page" (you could call it a resource). If the locator is really "unique", It'll be different from the page I get if I ask for example.com/user/jane, right? (modulo aliasing) Well if that's right, then this site is not a "single-page application". It has multiple pages with different URLs, and I don't know how that's different from any other website with server-side state. [Edited to mention state; state is irrelevant to whether its an MPA or an SPA, but without state it's hard to argue its an application at all]
      - spurgu 5y ago
        I see the definition of SPA as a web app that doesn't require page reloading when navigating. So both a SPA an an MPA can have the same URL structure while the latter requires page refreshes when switching between them. I might be wrong.
        denton-scratch 5y ago
        I see. I guess I'd better inform myself better about the jargon. So without a page-refresh, does anything get stored in browser history? Does the back-button work?
        spurgu 5y ago
        Traditionally that's been an issue but nowadays there's the History API. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History
        hbn 5y ago
        Correct. What I was trying to get across in my earlier reply is that a URL isn't quite treated the same as their name would imply these days. I could see why that might annoy purists, but these days there are browser APIs that enable modifying URLs (which modifies the "back" history) through Javascript, without actually doing a full reload of resources. So even though you're requesting a different address, you're technically not getting an entirely new "resource." No matter where you hit the address, you'll get the same base blob of HTML/css/js, but going to the URL directly will fire the proper navigation (through js) to get you to the spot you requested (which may involve loading different resources, dynamically). Hopefully that explanation makes sense
chrismorgan 5y ago
> SPAs make web resources impossible to index or link to - by definition, they do not contain "pages". There are two things you could be referring to here. Both are resolved so that you can have an SPA that basically starts out as an MPA and upgrades itself to an SPA, though it’s common for scripting to still be required where it shouldn’t be. Firstly, putting the route in the path rather than the fragment. That was resolved with history.pushState which shipped across all browsers in 2010–2012. You can safely assume it these days for all JavaScript-enabled browsers (you should not be supporting such browsers as IE9, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4, Safari 4 and Opera 10.1). Secondly (dependent on the first), whether the server’s response includes the content. Some SPAs don’t (reasonable for many applications, generally unreasonable for content websites), some do, typically using a family of techniques broadly called server-side rendering (search the term for explanations). It’s only in the last few years that SSR has seen significant uptake, though it’s existed in varying forms since at least the mid-’00s (though there were some fairly significant problems with it until history.pushState existed, so it wasn’t widely done except for Google’s #! → ?_escaped_state_= AJAX crawling scheme from 2009).
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  > Both are resolved so that you can have an SPA that basically starts out as an MPA and upgrades itself to an SPA, though it’s common for scripting to still be required where it shouldn’t be. Yuh, I guess my disconnect is that I tend to avoid sites that don't work at all without JS. I'm willing to enable JS if I care about the site (and it at least renders something without JS), but I'm not prepared to drop my pants for some random sales site that gives me a white screen if JS is disabled - someone else gets my business.
rk06 5y ago
SPAs can be linked via url fragments 'www.mysite.io/#/fragment1/subfragment/id' and modern frameworks allow you to use normal urls directly, by configuring server to ignore url path, and let SPA handle it (along with HTTP 404) So, it is not a technical limitation of SPA.

ngrilly 5y ago

It used to be impossible to link to specific page in a SPA without using hashes in the URL, but this problem has been solved years ago, and all modern browsers support it.

denton-scratch 5y ago
What's a "specific page" in the context of discussing single-page applications?
- hbn 5y ago
  If you go to example.com/user/jim in your browser, it'll navigate to (presumably) the profile for the user with the handle "jim" Maybe I don't understand what you're asking. Browsers these days have functionality that enables SPAs to navigate between URLs, push/pop to and from the back history, etc. without full page reloads.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Well, example.com/user/jim looks to me like a Unique Resource Locator. If that's right, then what I'll get is a "page" (you could call it a resource). If the locator is really "unique", It'll be different from the page I get if I ask for example.com/user/jane, right? (modulo aliasing) Well if that's right, then this site is not a "single-page application". It has multiple pages with different URLs, and I don't know how that's different from any other website with server-side state. [Edited to mention state; state is irrelevant to whether its an MPA or an SPA, but without state it's hard to argue its an application at all]
    - spurgu 5y ago
      I see the definition of SPA as a web app that doesn't require page reloading when navigating. So both a SPA an an MPA can have the same URL structure while the latter requires page refreshes when switching between them. I might be wrong.
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        I see. I guess I'd better inform myself better about the jargon. So without a page-refresh, does anything get stored in browser history? Does the back-button work?
        spurgu 5y ago
        Traditionally that's been an issue but nowadays there's the History API. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History
        hbn 5y ago
        Correct. What I was trying to get across in my earlier reply is that a URL isn't quite treated the same as their name would imply these days. I could see why that might annoy purists, but these days there are browser APIs that enable modifying URLs (which modifies the "back" history) through Javascript, without actually doing a full reload of resources. So even though you're requesting a different address, you're technically not getting an entirely new "resource." No matter where you hit the address, you'll get the same base blob of HTML/css/js, but going to the URL directly will fire the proper navigation (through js) to get you to the spot you requested (which may involve loading different resources, dynamically). Hopefully that explanation makes sense

chrismorgan 5y ago

> SPAs make web resources impossible to index or link to - by definition, they do not contain "pages". There are two things you could be referring to here. Both are resolved so that you can have an SPA that basically starts out as an MPA and upgrades itself to an SPA, though it’s common for scripting to still be required where it shouldn’t be. Firstly, putting the route in the path rather than the fragment. That was resolved with history.pushState which shipped across all browsers in 2010–2012. You can safely assume it these days for all JavaScript-enabled browsers (you should not be supporting such browsers as IE9, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4, Safari 4 and Opera 10.1). Secondly (dependent on the first), whether the server’s response includes the content. Some SPAs don’t (reasonable for many applications, generally unreasonable for content websites), some do, typically using a family of techniques broadly called server-side rendering (search the term for explanations). It’s only in the last few years that SSR has seen significant uptake, though it’s existed in varying forms since at least the mid-’00s (though there were some fairly significant problems with it until history.pushState existed, so it wasn’t widely done except for Google’s #! → ?_escaped_state_= AJAX crawling scheme from 2009).

denton-scratch 5y ago
> Both are resolved so that you can have an SPA that basically starts out as an MPA and upgrades itself to an SPA, though it’s common for scripting to still be required where it shouldn’t be. Yuh, I guess my disconnect is that I tend to avoid sites that don't work at all without JS. I'm willing to enable JS if I care about the site (and it at least renders something without JS), but I'm not prepared to drop my pants for some random sales site that gives me a white screen if JS is disabled - someone else gets my business.

rk06 5y ago

SPAs can be linked via url fragments 'www.mysite.io/#/fragment1/subfragment/id' and modern frameworks allow you to use normal urls directly, by configuring server to ignore url path, and let SPA handle it (along with HTTP 404) So, it is not a technical limitation of SPA.