Ember Fastboot (opens in new tab)

Ember has default model() hook for routes, and propose to add extra data fetching you need in children components into afterModel hook.

Everything is working just like you would set it up with React, except that with Ember declaring data dependencies on route is existing convention. And React gives you maybe a little bit more control around that.

  With Fastboot, somehow an additional, non-interfering layer of computation on the server does the same loop (without having to download anything and without significantly slowing down overall client app JS initialization)

Right. Typically, the way most client-side JavaScript applications (or "SPAs") work is by having a small, static HTML file that doesn't contain much content (beyond maybe a loading page). It contains <script> tags that point at your JavaScript payload.

First the browser downloads the HTML, then the JavaScript, then the JavaScript runs and fetches the data via XHR. Only then does the user see the content they were after in the first place.

This actually works surprisingly well for "workspace" apps where the user is using it throughout the day (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) On modern devices with good broadband, the difference is negligible.

But the thing this sucks for is content sites, where you aren't using an "app" but you're just clicking a link in Twitter or something. If it doesn't load within a second or so, you aren't that invested that you don't just close the tab. That has been the biggest source of pushback on frameworks like Angular and Ember for sites like this.

FastBoot bends the curve by replacing that static HTML file. Rather than serving an empty document that just points to JavaScript assets, we keep your Ember app running in Node.js on the server. When an HTTP request comes in, we direct it to Ember's router, where it figures out what models to load and components to render. When it finishes, it sends the document back to the browser.

You can think about this is as effectively outsourcing the JavaScript runtime to the server for the first load, but then the browser can take over again on subsequent navigations so it's very fast.

I think FastBoot is a great option for search crawlers, Facebook and Twitter embedding (it supports Open Graph and Twitter Cards), and supporting JavaScript-less clients. Most importantly, it's a way to get content quickly to users with a cold cache.

That said, we are planning to aggressively take advantage of App Cache and Service Worker, so ideally any second-time visitor to your site only has to fetch the raw data to see what they're after.

  I'm guessing that somehow the client's processing is disabled on that first "pageview" to avoid double calculation. Is that correct? (if it is, it's very cool :)

Currently it does a full rerender once it loads, but one of the motivating features for writing Glimmer 2 is the ability to quickly "rehydrate", so that rerenders are imperceptible to the user assuming nothing has changed. We'd also love to automatically serialize the backing models of the app so you don't have to double fetch.

Yes it's correct for first route you visit, it's rendered on server and sent already rendered to your browser, then the rest of the framework is downloaded and another request is rendered in your browser.

A slightly modified version of Tablet Gothic (https://typekit.com/fonts/tablet-gothic).

The Inspector works by injecting some debug code into the running app, so it won't work with FastBoot because the JavaScript is running on the server.

That said, it should work just fine once the Ember app finishes loading and running in the browser. I would love it if you could file an issue on the Ember Inspector GitHub page with the error you're getting.

There were some regressions, but it's back on par since the last few releases (2.3+ or so).

In addition, Glimmer 2 is near completion, and when ready will provide further speed ups to initial rendering.

We're running Ember 2.2 on Intercom and we've found it to be faster than 1.x. In addition to this, it looks like Glimmer 2 will bring significant render time improvement for both initial render and subsequent DOM updates.

I think the CLI helps tremendously, even if you have to learn it (and for simple stuff you don't aside from `ember new` and `ember start`, maybe a few file generators). The biggest problem with beginners is setting up a JS environment—I've seen people waste hours doing it. Ember's CLI tool takes care of all of that.

> only sources of sanity and reason in this community

Oh come on now, lets not be hyperbolic. I'm a massive fan of Ember, but I'm a bigger fan of Redux with React; the reason that Ember can afford to be opinionated is because the team is extremely smart and takes the best winning ideas from the outside "insane" community.

Good news is that on a medium-sized project (10s of routes and models), it still just takes two commands... haven't gone through setting up production yet, but I don't foresee any big issues.

> What makes our solution unique is that you have to think about the server very little, if at all.

What is an example of something a dev might have to think about with fastboot that they don't have to think about with DoneJS?

Sorry to nitpick, but I don't think the React example is an analogous initiative. ;)

There is a huge gulf between "synchronously render a component in Node" and "asynchronously boot an app, marshall async data, render an async UI, and do it concurrently."

I touch on this a little bit in this talk[1], but the bulk of the work we've done over the last year is conventionalizing app boot and figuring out how to run multiple instances concurrently, cheaply.

Angular 2 is much more similar to what we're doing with FastBoot, and I'm excited to see where they go with that and crosspollinate ideas. (The work they're doing with Web Worker rendering is also very exciting.)

1: https://vimeo.com/157688134

This is rendering a component server-side though correct, a la. React?

(In the comment above Tom is suggesting fastboot goes significantly further than this, to make your 'client-side app' render server-side).

Yes of course. Thanks.

Looking around on the site I didn't see a link to report something like this, and I didn't immediately think to goto github with it.

Please excuse my ignorance.

Sad to hear. I switched to React last year because I had the fear this would happen.