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Discussion on: Pitch me on the pros and cons of your preferred web app framework

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therealgrinny profile image
Connor • Edited

None,

and/or static sites with CGI requests.

Pros:

  • You can programmatically generate really streamlined, thin text content that runs fast over traditional node hops or through a CDN
  • Much easier to support a wide spread of devices
  • IF and only IF any CGI request inputs are sanitized and heavily monitored, it's a lot cleaner and more secure than having Javascript run clientside
  • No JS framework or dependencies oftentimes == No CORS to deal with
  • Low-quality images for overview, hiding full-scale content behind a click or a CSS blur, means that average scrollers on a site will cost less data and take less time for FCP (First Contentful Paint)
  • No frontload of JS for the client to process on first visit - esp when SPA's are concerned - means no Flash of Unstyled Content (often known by other names)

Cons:

  • Basically relegates all meaningful processing power to the server
  • Dynamic content isn't really a thing; you'd either have to pre generate next possible page visits per-user based on their last GET request, or generate on the fly and increase processor burst
  • Not gonna look near as fancy as you can make things with a good JS/SASS setup
  • CSS can make things -look- like an SPA, but you can't make it -work- quite like one without some decent clientside scripting; no more "Add this website to your home screen!"
  • Analytics won't be nearly as helpful; you'll only really get a drilldown on common user paths and link referrals.
  • Advertisements will probably be noticeably slower than the rest of the page, and that looks even uglier than ads normally do. Assuming they work at all on a fairly JS-less site.