Comment on Google now requires JavaScript
ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months agoI’m a React dev. You can create server side websites, written in JS, that don’t require JS to be turned on in the browser. Granted, this just became a new official feature in React but has already been available with React frameworks like NextJS
PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That is insane! I’m wondering how they handle modifying the DOM w/ out JS, did HTML 5 get a significant update? I gotta look into this because that sound super interesting.
ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
It’s called Server Components. If you actually build a fully static website, there is no DOM modification going on. I would actually not recommend doing that with React. The goal of it is to have a mix of both. The initial render is super fast because it is prerendered once for everyone. Then dynamic data is being fetched if needed and elements are replaced. It also improves SEO.
React 19 is not yet officially released but you can read more about it here react.dev/blog/2024/04/25/react-19
PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee 2 months ago
So you’re offloading the JS processing onto the server? I cant be understanding this correctly because there is no way anyone wants to pay for the serverside cost of something that used to be an end user “cost”. Also this would add interaction latency.
ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
There is no latency on static pages. They are rendered once as regular HTML and then saved on the server to be immediately ready for the user. The server is only processing that initial data fetching and rendering once per site. If needed, it can be retriggered.
Server pages on the other hand will do the initial fetch request every time but once the site is there, no data is missing and everything is there. It’s not for everyone. Regular dynamic pages still make sense. For every method there are use cases.
Disclaimer: I’m speaking from my experience with Next.js which did the same thing long before and React now aims to make that easier. But I’m not sure if React has the distinction between static and server. It’s all new and I haven’t had a project to test it on yet.