Why is Isomorphic JavaScript not longer talked about?

Andrei Robu — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:58:16 +0000

I'm posting this question because I've been away from web development for a few years and, back then, Isomorphic Development (the idea of running the same code on the server as in the browser) was in vogue and widely discussed, with many articles were being written about it online.

An example is this article, Isomorphic JavaScript: The Future of Web Apps, which predicts that Isomorphic JavaScript would become more popular:

As more organizations get comfortable running Node.js in production,
it’s inevitable that more and more web apps will begin to share code
between their client and server code.

And this article, Why Everyone is Talking About Isomorphic / Universal JavaScript and Why it Matters, explaining why Isomorphic JavaScript can be useful:

In addition to re-using templates, developers can also re-use the same
libraries and utilities on both the server and browser, further
reducing the need for excess code. Libraries like Underscore.js,
lodash, Request, and SuperAgent are hugely popular for this reason.
Having the same library on both the server and browser allows for
better development and code reuse which leads to happier software
engineers and less time spent maintaining the code.

Now that I'm coming back to web development, I'm picking up where I left off and catching up. This idea captivated me and I'm sure I'm not the only one interested, yet it seems this is no longer discussed and that there are no or few recent articles about it. Why is this the case?

I'm hoping you could answer below with your experience.

Did experience show that it is not worth the hassle?

Or is it no longer talked about simply because it is now commonplace and no longer a novel idea?

DEV Community: Andrei Robu

Why is Isomorphic JavaScript not longer talked about?