I actually wonder if it would be as bad as it was, given everything we've learned since then.
Suppose we devise a protocol that would allow browsers to directly do what we use JS for today? In other words, it would send a request to the server for every interaction with the page, but the response would be a DOM diff in some well-specified standard format, which the browser would apply to "refresh" the page.
At that point it feels like the main difference would be in latency for small page updates. How common are those, and how bad is it on a typical Internet connection? I'd expect there to be enough to break stuff like custom scrollbars and other such widgets, but many people would say good riddance to those.
Phoenix’s LiveView actually does exactly this via web sockets, to allow a purely server side framework to provide live updates. A big drawback is that this does t work as well over mobile internet connections, which is a bitter pill to swallow.
Very interesting, thank you! I suspect that the issue with mobile will become less and less relevant as average connection speeds grow, just like they did on the desktops.
Suppose we devise a protocol that would allow browsers to directly do what we use JS for today? In other words, it would send a request to the server for every interaction with the page, but the response would be a DOM diff in some well-specified standard format, which the browser would apply to "refresh" the page.
At that point it feels like the main difference would be in latency for small page updates. How common are those, and how bad is it on a typical Internet connection? I'd expect there to be enough to break stuff like custom scrollbars and other such widgets, but many people would say good riddance to those.