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0 pointsnoodlesUK10mo ago0 comments

I completely agree with the sentiment that we don’t need SPAs and similar tech for news sites and dashboards and the myriad crud apps we use on a day to day basis but I think what you’re proposing is throwing the baby out with the bath water. How would a site like google maps, which I’m sure we can all agree is extremely useful, work in a Web 1.0 style world? It needs to dynamically load tiles and various other resources. The web being a place where we can host and instantly distribute complex cross-platform interactive software in a fairly secure sandbox is a modern marvel.

0 comments

vinnymac10mo ago

You misunderstand me, I’m not proposing we get rid of JavaScript.

I am saying that allowing for JavaScript to be dynamically downloaded and executed after the page is ready was a mistake.

You can build your Google docs, your maps, and figmas. You don’t need JS to be sent after the page is ready to do so.

gameman14410mo ago

Wouldn't this make users pay for every possible feature they could ever use on a given site? For instance, in Google Maps I might use Street View 1% of the time, and the script for it is pretty bulky. In your ideal world, would I have to preload the Street View handling scripts whenever I loaded up Google Maps at all?

vinnymac10mo ago

If you’re asking if it would incentivize us to be more careful when introducing additional interactive functionality on a page, and how that functionality impacted performance and page speed, I expect it would.

Thinking about how the web was designed today, isn’t necessarily good when considering how it could work best tomorrow.

1 more reply

stavros10mo ago

How are you going to stop it, when you already are running JS? I can write a VM in JS that I can load, then I can load static assets after the page has loaded, and execute them in the VM. How would you block that?

vinnymac10mo ago

I am thinking about a different time, when JS did less, and these decisions were being made.

Today, what you are saying is definitely a concern, but all APIs are abused beyond their intended uses. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t continue to design good ones that lead users in the intended direction.

sgustard10mo ago

> How would google maps work in a Web 1.0 world?

We had that in the form of MapQuest, and it was agonizingly slow. Click to load the next tile, wait for the page to reload, and repeat. Modern SPAs are a revelation.

vinnymac10mo ago

What’s cool is that with html includes (import specification) we could have supported this without any JS.

https://www.w3.org/TR/html-imports/

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsnoodlesUK10mo ago0 comments

0 comments

vinnymac10mo ago

You misunderstand me, I’m not proposing we get rid of JavaScript.

I am saying that allowing for JavaScript to be dynamically downloaded and executed after the page is ready was a mistake.

You can build your Google docs, your maps, and figmas. You don’t need JS to be sent after the page is ready to do so.

gameman14410mo ago

vinnymac10mo ago

Thinking about how the web was designed today, isn’t necessarily good when considering how it could work best tomorrow.

1 more reply

stavros10mo ago

vinnymac10mo ago

I am thinking about a different time, when JS did less, and these decisions were being made.

sgustard10mo ago

> How would google maps work in a Web 1.0 world?

We had that in the form of MapQuest, and it was agonizingly slow. Click to load the next tile, wait for the page to reload, and repeat. Modern SPAs are a revelation.

vinnymac10mo ago

What’s cool is that with html includes (import specification) we could have supported this without any JS.

https://www.w3.org/TR/html-imports/

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse