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So basically PHP, but in Go? I love Go, but I honestly hope this doesn't become as widespread as PHP. There is a reason why we switched away from template-based

So basically PHP, but in Go? I love Go, but I honestly hope this doesn't become as widespread as PHP. There is a reason why we switched away from template-based frontends (à la PHP). On the other side, it's also true that some frontend frameworks are partially moving back to SSR...

shadowgovt 4y ago
One counterpoint is React is doing gangbusters right now and uses the JSX syntax extension to embed HTML directly into JavaScript or TypeScript. To my money, the main issues with PHP had little to do with template embedding and everything to do with Perl being a messy language for writing correct code (coupled with too many people in the era underestimating the importance of "correctness" for HTML rendering when the ability for a malicious operator to mutate HTML on a page can result in all manner of security exploits). Perl just has too many ways to write accepted almost-correct code that breaks abstraction / fails to string-escape in subtle and whole-farm-losing ways.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Are you equating PHP and Perl? If so, that's incorrect - the relationship between the two is just one of influence, PHP has some influences from Perl (but also tons from C, C++, and Java).
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    To be fair, you haven't exactly augmented the single-element list [Perl] with a host of languages that I'd consider improvements on writing correct code. ;) Java, yes, mostly.
- hiccuphippo 4y ago
  There's a difference though. JSX embeds html into strings while the way Php intermingles html and code uses global buffers. That makes composition more complicated since you have to deal with nested buffers, flushing, cleaning, etc. I really prefer the way JSX does it over Php's.
paulsmith 4y ago
> So basically PHP, but in Go? You say that like it's a bad thing ;^)
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  Then why not <?go ... ?> instead of the random ^ soup?
  - paulsmith 4y ago
    Why is that better?
    - sunbum 4y ago
      Internationalization, not every keyboard has ^ easily accessible.
    - nablaone 4y ago
      Looks like other SSRs. FEDs will thank you. In real word HTML template are 90% DIVs, 10% generated content.
  - andrewgilmartin 4y ago
    Please, no. Let's not intermix <> code fragments with <> html elements. Have you witnessed the nightmare of reading and updating JSTL, for example?
    - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
      Meh, JSP and PHP do this already. JSP is of course <%… %>. ColdFusion does it all the time. It’s easier on the eye, especially with editor support, than having to scan for all those ^ characters. Anyway, my original comment was a take on “PHP but for Go”, and only half serious. I don’t see myself using the product discussed here. I hear the people who say “I disable JavaScript” but frankly I always write my apps so that the frontend part communicates with the backend via JSON API. I’m not a frontend dev…
kevinfiol 4y ago
> There is a reason why we switched away from template-based frontends (à la PHP). Can you elaborate on that reason? Genuine question. As you mentioned in your post, a lot of what newer web frameworks are doing (SvelteKit, Astro, Enhance.dev, etc.) are reminding me a lot of my early days with PHP. The benefits of SSR are widely acknowledged amongst the proper JS frameworks.
- denysvitali 4y ago
  Frontends became more interactive, and as such, you can't really template that interactivity / reactivity away. Hardly anyone uses Vanilla JS nowadays, and thus, hardly anyone can create a template-based website for today's standards. This is just my opinion though, happy to be proven wrong :)
dakiol 4y ago
> There is a reason why we switched away from template-based frontends (à la PHP) Who is "we"? There are more websites out there written using template-based frontends (mostly PHP) than the other way around.

shadowgovt 4y ago

One counterpoint is React is doing gangbusters right now and uses the JSX syntax extension to embed HTML directly into JavaScript or TypeScript. To my money, the main issues with PHP had little to do with template embedding and everything to do with Perl being a messy language for writing correct code (coupled with too many people in the era underestimating the importance of "correctness" for HTML rendering when the ability for a malicious operator to mutate HTML on a page can result in all manner of security exploits). Perl just has too many ways to write accepted almost-correct code that breaks abstraction / fails to string-escape in subtle and whole-farm-losing ways.

kennywinker 4y ago
Are you equating PHP and Perl? If so, that's incorrect - the relationship between the two is just one of influence, PHP has some influences from Perl (but also tons from C, C++, and Java).
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  To be fair, you haven't exactly augmented the single-element list [Perl] with a host of languages that I'd consider improvements on writing correct code. ;) Java, yes, mostly.
hiccuphippo 4y ago
There's a difference though. JSX embeds html into strings while the way Php intermingles html and code uses global buffers. That makes composition more complicated since you have to deal with nested buffers, flushing, cleaning, etc. I really prefer the way JSX does it over Php's.

paulsmith 4y ago

> So basically PHP, but in Go? You say that like it's a bad thing ;^)

rad_gruchalski 4y ago
Then why not <?go ... ?> instead of the random ^ soup?
- paulsmith 4y ago
  Why is that better?
  - sunbum 4y ago
    Internationalization, not every keyboard has ^ easily accessible.
  - nablaone 4y ago
    Looks like other SSRs. FEDs will thank you. In real word HTML template are 90% DIVs, 10% generated content.
- andrewgilmartin 4y ago
  Please, no. Let's not intermix <> code fragments with <> html elements. Have you witnessed the nightmare of reading and updating JSTL, for example?
  - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    Meh, JSP and PHP do this already. JSP is of course <%… %>. ColdFusion does it all the time. It’s easier on the eye, especially with editor support, than having to scan for all those ^ characters. Anyway, my original comment was a take on “PHP but for Go”, and only half serious. I don’t see myself using the product discussed here. I hear the people who say “I disable JavaScript” but frankly I always write my apps so that the frontend part communicates with the backend via JSON API. I’m not a frontend dev…

kevinfiol 4y ago

> There is a reason why we switched away from template-based frontends (à la PHP). Can you elaborate on that reason? Genuine question. As you mentioned in your post, a lot of what newer web frameworks are doing (SvelteKit, Astro, Enhance.dev, etc.) are reminding me a lot of my early days with PHP. The benefits of SSR are widely acknowledged amongst the proper JS frameworks.

denysvitali 4y ago
Frontends became more interactive, and as such, you can't really template that interactivity / reactivity away. Hardly anyone uses Vanilla JS nowadays, and thus, hardly anyone can create a template-based website for today's standards. This is just my opinion though, happy to be proven wrong :)

dakiol 4y ago

> There is a reason why we switched away from template-based frontends (à la PHP) Who is "we"? There are more websites out there written using template-based frontends (mostly PHP) than the other way around.