Hi Michael,
Le 25/05/2014 07:10, Michael Heuberger a écrit :
Look at Angular, their templates reside on the client side. For
production, a grunt task can compress all files into one single, huge JS
file that is served to the client, then for any subsequent pages no more
resources are loaded from the server. It is a widely used practice.
Look at React.js, it allows to render templates on the server side and
it's been a selling point for some people (it allows to generate the
same page whether you are on the client or server-side. It helps for SEO
sometimes).
Also I mentioned earlier, PhoneGap is getting more popular and exactly
uses the architecture I have described.
With application built with PhoneGap, the application (including the
main HTML file) is downloaded once, so that's different from a webpage
served from a server.
Serving different content based on different URLs (and status)
actually does make a lot of sense when you want your user to see the
proper content within the first HTTP round-trip (which saves
bandwidth). If you always serve generic content and figure it all out
on the client side, then either you always need a second request to
get the specific content or you're always sending useless data during
the first generic response which is also wasted bandwidth.
Good point. From that point of view I agree but you forgot one thing:
The user experience. We want mobile apps to be very responsive below
300ms.
Agreed (on UX and responsive applications)
Hence the two requests. The first one ensures the SPA to be
loaded and the UI to be initialized. You'll see some animation, a text
saying "Fetching data" whatever. Then the second request retrieves the
specific content.
What I'm proposing is that all the relevant content is served within the
*first* request. The URL is used by the client to express to the server
(with arbitrary granularity, it depends on your app, obviously) what the
user wants.
What I'm proposing is not two requests to get the proper content, but
only one. The user doesn't even have to wait with a useless "Fetching
data" screen; the useful content is just there within the first request
(hence server-side rendering with React or Moustache or else being useful).
This is better than letting the user wait about 700ms until the user
sees something on the screen.
I'm proposing for the user to wait 0ms (ignoring uncompressible
networking time of course) until the user sees something useful.
On this topic, I recommend watching [1] which introduces the idea of
"critical rendering path". Given your focus on performance and
preventing wasted bandwidth, I think you'll be interested.
Thanks for the link but I am Deaf and do not understand what they talk
on YouTube :(
I apologize for mistakenly assuming video was a proper format for
everyone to consume.
You can find the slide deck at
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IRHyU7_crIiCjl0Gvue0WY3eY_eYvFQvSfwQouW9368/present#slide=id.p19
It should be self-sufficient. I'm happy to answer questions if it isn't.
And credit where it's due, everytime I wrote above "what I'm proposing"
it is just a reformulation of my understanding of Ilya Grigorik's
presentation on the critical rendering path (I just add an emphasis on
content).
Furthermore you can convert a whole single page app into an iPhone app
with PhoneGap. All the HTML resides in the app, not on the server.
That's a very different approach and a good reason why JavaScript has
the right to know if the HTTP request resulted into a 200 or a 404.
If all the HTML resides in the app, not on the server, then it wasn't
served via HTTP, so there is no 200 or 404 to inform about (since no
HTTP request occured).
Ah, well spotted. PhoneGap comes with two options:
a) You can choose to reside the whole HTML in the app or
b) have it served from the server during the first HTTP request.
Option a) saved bandwidth but you cannot update pages easily (option b).
Option a) wouldn't need to know if it's a 200 or 404, you are right.
Still, option b) needs to know the status code.
Option b) sounds like a bookmark, so it's a regular web page, so the
arguments against stand (?)
Let me ask you another question:
Is there a good reason NOT to give JavaScript a chance to find out the
HTTP status code of the current page?
By that argument, an absurd amount of features should go in ;-)
From a technical standpoint, I see no strong reason to not provide the
HTTP status code.
From a more "social" standpoint, it bothers me, because it means people
serve the exact same content for all URLs, which defeats the very
purpose of why URLs were invented in the first place.
You want to serve the same content regardless of the URL and then have
client-side code read the URL and change the page state based on the
URL. We already have a standardized way to express a part of the URL
that is only interpreted on the client side which is the hash
(everything after '#'). Format your URLs using # if that's your intention.
Also, given that you always serve the same content and only figure
things out on the client side, why does your server sometimes answer
404? Deciding whether the URL is erroneous should occur on the
client-side, no?
Anyway, so far, what you're asking for seems like it's only encouraging
misusage of existing technologies.
David
