For anyone who was as confused as I was: Carson Gross, the author of this essay is also the creator of htmx.
I thought at first that the essay was going to be a joke of "all these weaknesses are actually strengths," but I feel like most of the criticisms in the essay are valid. Like I don't know why you would use var instead of let or const in modern JS, and htmx does indeed increase the attack surface for XSS.
I guess he's just being self-deprecating? Saying the mean things about his project to prove that he's more aware of them than the trolls?
For context, I personally like htmx even though my experience with it is limited.
For the first one, I think it's linked to the next point of "No Build Tools". Using `var` instead of `let` and `const` `let`s them support (very) old browsers without a build step (which in turn leads to other benefits: https://htmx.org/essays/no-build-step/).
Maybe I'm silly but I don't understand why you wouldn't do web interactivity with old machines by going the old-fashioned way, which if optimized can feel wonderfully fast (just not as fast as an SPA that anticipates data loads, giving the user the illusion of instant) and will be more lightweight, easier to understand, will take advantage of all the old traditional tech ecosystem, etc.
If we're talking about people who haven't upgraded their browsers in a very long time... chances are that light vanilla websites offer the best experience.
Wow, well I guess its good to know what your weaknesses are. I support anyone who bothers to try and improve the UI situation with the web.
Unfortunately, I think at some point the industry is going to have to start over and throw away HTML and CSS. Maybe throw away the browser as well. Javascript will survive on its own, but who knows if it will be useful in Web 6.0
The web browser is really holding us back. Something’s gotta give. And htmx is not going to be it.
lol. Carson is obviously aware of the criticisms he faces.
The best one is the "Duplicating (Or More!) Your APIs"
How is this a problem?
The backend would be broken down into layers. Data layer, business layer, etc.
For the website, you have a layer to fetch the data to return html.
For another thing (ie rest api) - you fetch the SAME data, return in json.
How is this more work, again?
NOTE - Yes, my comment is not aimed at Carson, but those that genuinely use it as an excuse to attack htmx.
I thought at first that the essay was going to be a joke of "all these weaknesses are actually strengths," but I feel like most of the criticisms in the essay are valid. Like I don't know why you would use var instead of let or const in modern JS, and htmx does indeed increase the attack surface for XSS.
I guess he's just being self-deprecating? Saying the mean things about his project to prove that he's more aware of them than the trolls?
For context, I personally like htmx even though my experience with it is limited.