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> Server-Side Rendering comprises various techniques involved in running JavaScript universally or as some like to say, isomorphically, that is, both on the ser
by zelphirkalt 5y ago
> Server-Side Rendering comprises various techniques involved in running JavaScript universally or as some like to say, isomorphically, that is, both on the server and on the client [...]
I am like: "Did they just redefine SSR to limit its meaning to something JS specific, when it was the default for decades?" Then:
> [...] — in order to pregenerate markup for delivery and spare the browser from having to do so dynamically on page load — this is my definition, you'll find many others, but I think this captures the gist of it.
Ahhh, their own definition! OK, it is rather weird to limit SSR to be something JS specific, when people have been talking about rendering HTML on the server side for decades. Most web frameworks are able to make use of some kind of templating language, of which there are hundreds, if not thousands. Often they are interchangable and not a hard dependency of the web framework.
- fuzzy2 5y agoI think the SSR term is very much tied to SPAs. It is the process of (pre-)rendering a SPA on the server. So until a WASM SPA framework comes around this will be limited to JavaScript, yes. Because SPAs must be JavaScript. Sure we were generating HTML on the server since basically forever. But that’s not SSR (in the sense that there is no client-side rendering).
- chrismorgan 5y agoThe term “server-side rendering” was in common usage when people started implementing client-side rendering more commonly in the late ’00s and early ’10s. But in the last five years or so, the term has been appropriated by the isomorphic rendering crowd so that “SSR” or “Server-Side Rendering” normally means server-side isomorphic rendering (that is: server-side operation of something that’s primarily designed for client-side rendering), and there’s no standard term any more for pure server-side rendering, though if you write it lowercase it probably means the old-school technique.
- arethuza 5y agoIs it really fair to call something that is used so widely by major sites "old-school"?
- chrismorgan 5y agoSure. “Old-school” does not imply “obsolete”, but evokes more a sense of traditional ways. (This is the way it’s been used for a couple of hundred years or more.) I think it’s the right word, and used it deliberately.
- arethuza 5y agoFair point - I think I was being over-sensitive there :-)
- fuzzy2 5y agoCan’t say I ever heard it outside the context of SPAs, certainly not in the past. Back then you just had dynamic websites or dynamic content.
- vagrantJin 5y ago> in the sense that there is no client-side rendering This read like: "Water is H2O, yes but H2O is not water" That's why it's called server side rendering because it happens on the server and not the client yes? And you agree that has been the default for decades yes?
- fuzzy2 5y agoYou misread then. I meant SSR in a context where no client-side rendering is involved. Without SPA or the like. Which I certainly have never called SSR or heard anybody call SSR.
- jhgb 5y agoThat's like saying that analog computers hadn't existed until digital computers appeared because only after the advent of digital computers someone started calling a certain thing "an analog computer". Just because you don't call a certain thing with a special name (yet) doesn't mean that that thing doesn't exist.
- jgalvez 5y agoYeah, SSR is pretty much a misnomer in this context, but it's still the term most heavily used to describe server-side rendering JavaScript apps. Like others have said, we're lacking a term for non-JavaScript dependent SSR now.
- ryanbrunner 5y agoI've used "server-generated HTML" for a while and that usually makes things clear enough. I guess that's technically true for SSR Javascript as well but in context it makes sense (as in, "our pages are mostly done with server generated HTML vs SPAs")
- jhgb 5y ago> running JavaScript universally or as some like to say, isomorphically, that is, both on the server and on the client "Universally"? "Isomorphically"? These people sure as hell are trying way too hard to avoid using the word "portable" for some reason.
- twsted 5y agoExactly. SSR is _not_ tied to JavaScript. Now it is often cited in the context of JS (with other hyped terms like Isomorphism and Hydration) but we used it for years to mean classic templated server-side cross-language generation.