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Comment by pplonski86 | Hacker News Reader

why?

After working with JSX, HTML/templating just feels like a step backwards.

Web pages these days are far less about the template and far more about the logic and interactions involved.

Subsequently building up from HTML the way pages used to be built and then embedding code doesn't really line up with the way modern web apps are developed.

While it may have a niche in front-end design, for the kind of work I do at least it comes off as though the platform "allows" devs to build web apps entirely written in CSS.

> Subsequently building up from HTML the way pages used to be built and then embedding code doesn't really line up with the way modern web apps are developed.

Unfortunately the data doesn't agree with you. JSX, react and all that jazz is not used by 99.99% of the web. And NEVER will be! In fact react/vuejs/front-end frameworks are fancy only these days, the majority of web developers don't even use preprocessors for CSS or a templating engine like HAML/Markdown to begin with [1].

There's a reason why writing HTML has been kept simple. And forgiving.

[1] https://blog.codepen.io/2013/04/08/statistics-on-preprocesso...

Edits: Downvoted because it doesn't fit your narrative? Lame.

> the way modern web apps are developed.

I suppose that could have been worded differently, I meant it in the context of the original person mentioning HTML is their least favorite part of web design.

For your 0.01% of us who use all that jazz HTML-first design feels like a step backwards and especially trying to inject application logic comes off as a ham-handed method of design when compared with a logic-first design that spits out and manages the UI (HTML/CSS).

I'm not sure what CSS preprocessors has to do with that, but I'm also confused - what is your opinion of Mavo?

> I'm not sure what CSS preprocessors has to do with that…

That even simpler step-ups like preprocessors with lower learning curves have not been adopted by the majority. Simplicity and lazy has a very high bar for any sort of competing tech.

I agree with you that technical simplicity of HTML-first would feel a step backward because you have already climbed over the fence and accepted the issues of over-engineering that come with React/JSX/Webpack and 1000 other components.

This of course doesn't mean HTML-first approach would be replaced anytime soon. Even with likes of Facebook betting their entire ass behind it.

On Mavo: Not tried it yet, but I do see a promise in it. Also, coming from Lea Verou makes it all the more compelling.

It's true, there is a steep learning curve. I'm not sure that's a good comparison though, for example I don't use CSSPS but it has nothing to do with the learning curve.

So for comparison, how do the majority of people design sites? Say you're making a HN or Twitter clone, what is the process from cradle to production to get the site up and running?

To make markup expressive enough for general purpose logic, you have to extend it to such a degree that it becomes much more complex than the tools it replaces. This is especially so when dealing with an XML-like syntax, with its verbose, interleavable end-tags, rather than the much more succinct S-Expression style of Lisp. Mixing data and logic basically requires homoiconicity or else tooling requirements explode.

That's why I design all my web pages with S-Expressions and my Lisp server converts them to HTML on the fly. It works great unless I ever need to hire a designer who wants to work with raw HTML and CSS, and then I'll be slightly hosed.

name your classes right and just css should do the job. I don't get why people have ruin decent markup to make a button look better.

Of course. But sometimes you want to change behavior as well as appearance.

because markup is so 1990

That's strange, I still use markup every day in the current year.

To add to the strangeness, every website I inspect with browser tools shows me it has HTML. Are all websites from the 90's?

It's possible to make arbitrarily sophisticated websites without serving any HTML except a script tag. The browser shows you HTML to represent the DOM, but it doesn't mean sites are serving any significant amount of it. (most still are though - I was just pointing out that it's possible to avoid it almost completely)

It's worth noting this is tailored towards web applications where as HTML can be used by any website - marketing, brand experience or otherwise including web app.

Jokes on them -- I have JS turned off on my phone except a few websites. I'm not paying outrageous mobile bandwidth fees for bloated websites and ads that cost me more in bandwidth than they make.

So for 90% of my browsing, I'll click on their page, see nothing, and move on with my day.

JS is used for a lot more than just adverts, just install an adblocker on your phone

Many websites use JS that is slow and jumpy -- bloated -- on a phone, especially a cheaper one like I use.

Also, I like to use Chrome on my phone, so installing an adblocker is a lot of work for little benefit. It would slow down the already laggy rendering and require I either use a different browser or let an app intercept network traffic.

I'm perfectly happy not using JS (or for that matter, media) on my phone.

Sure, you can do that. Serve a JS file that happens to create the HTML on the fly that someone had to code beforehand. Serving just a JS file that outputs HTML is still using markup.

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