In general, if a prospective employee told me they needed React to implement website comments, I would not walk away with a very high opinion of that dev's abilities.
> But without framework you in the end just create a custom one
Only if you've only ever written React-style webpages, and can't imagine any other way a website may work. Which, needless to say, would reflect a very limited experience of the web.
* Or just a plain XMLHttpRequest call? Dynamic loading is exceedingly simple, and certainly doesn't require a convoluted web framework.
> full page reload aversion that users supposedly have (they don't, they have much more of an aversion to endless spinners and websites that break their browser's scrollbars and back buttons)
I'm simply saying user wants performant websites. You're basically saying the same. Full-page reloads are, ceteris paribus, always slower than some JSON payload. And when you're saying to use HTMX, I then don't understand what you mean by "minimal to no JS".
> Only if you've only ever written React-style webpages
Again, I'm not saying anything about using React specifically.
> convoluted web framework
Yet another straw man.
I wrote an essay about this here:
https://htmx.org/essays/splitting-your-apis/
Also, producing JSON often involves reflection and can be more CPU intensive than straight templating (w/ fixed properly lookups) depending on your technology. Finally, the size delta between JSON and hypermedia is lower than most people think, particularly with compression:
https://github.com/1cg/html-json-size-comparison
in most real world systems i expect data store access to be the dominant latency issue
some people have had good success w/htmx from a performance perspective (2x+ speed, 1/2 memory consumption):
https://htmx.org/essays/a-real-world-react-to-htmx-port/
but of course it depends on your use case.
I think htmx would be excellent for an e-commerce site, which is mostly text and images and relatively simple, coarse-grained user interactions.
the speaker is referring to them not needing to write javascript for a specific feature, which is true, but they do use scripting for some aspects of the application, which is perfectly acceptable in hypermedia-driven applications:
https://htmx.org/essays/hypermedia-friendly-scripting/
regardless, the wins are obvious
"Minimal", maybe, "small to no", nay :D
Considering the original phrase was 'minimal or no', I am glad that you now agree.
> you linked the presenter literally says - "no JavaScript, just HTMX" - but HTMX is written in guess what? Very dishonest.
It's difficult to take this seriously. Just wait until you find out most of Python is written in C! Very dishonest!
> It's difficult to take this seriously. Just wait until you find out most of Python is written in C! Very dishonest!
Now I understand, you're just obtuse.
This seems like an exceedingly mean-spirited and unconstructive type of response to have to people who have been giving up their time trying to explain a different point of view to you. I would also gently point out the HN guidelines at this point.
I note you haven't responded to my more substantive reply here,[0] so I am unsure you saw it. I would encourage you to read it with less of a zero-sum 'I-win-you-lose' mentality. I won't be engaging with you further though.
That must explain why websites are so fast and responsive these days! /s
If you're wedded to the idea of dynamic reloads, which - imho - you ought not be, HTMX or Turbo are ways of achieving that without needing to write any JS. HTMX is designed to complete HTML as a hypermedia language, which it does using JS, but it itself does not require any additional JS to use. I'm sure the authors would dearly love it if HTMX's ideas were taken directly into HTML5, and they could scrap the JS library altogether. Its use of JS is an implementation detail borne of necessity.
If you're coming from SPAs and can't imagine websites working any other way, I highly recommend reading something like Hypermedia Systems (https://hypermedia.systems/). Come with an open mind, let it be your gateway drug. HTMX builds on a very old tradition of hypermedia, all the way back to Computer Lib/Dream Machines, through systems like HyperCard, to the actual, original definition of RESTfulness (that modern Ajax SPAs generally do not meet). It draws deep from the hacker ethos (you know, that thing that this website is about!).
Personally, I don't even think HTMX is all that necessary. What I feel like you're missing is that the overwhelming majority of websites are technically very simple, and their value to their users is in their contents, not in their stack. Did you notice the full page reload when you hit Reply on your comment, here on HN? Were you terribly put out by it? Would HN be an improved website were it full of spinners and Ajax? I would respectfully suggest it would not. It delivers amazing value running as a Lisp program on a machine under someone's desk.
It's not, it's precise.
Sorry you wasted time writing all this, because I don't care about hypermedia systems - it's not that it's bad technology, I simply don't want to write yet another awful templating language. But that's just an aside, because once again you're talking about something else. But okay, let's switch to debating HTMX. My point then still stands: you simply need JavaScript. Now instead of this useless arguing, go find/build some big e-commerce website with this hypermedia stuff (or truly with no JavaScript) and then we'll see.
they are pretty big