Maybe worse performance on first render, but I am not sure if it is harder. With console.log, client-side rendering might be easier to debug.
Also, JavaScript might be as powerful as templating engine language, while being more familiar (and easier to debug in case of client side.)
About pre-rendering, it should be done to improve performance. That's why prerender-spa-plugin and Nuxt were born.
Beyond the first render, reactive component libraries syncs better with JavaScript than templating engine (where JavaScript's querySelector has to be used.)
I am a product engineer and have helped build software from small startups, to manipulating hundreds of millions of data points. I write API's and make tools that make developers lives easier.
I think we should assume equal knowledge of front end and back end language here. And I am not saying server side rendering isn't fast once rendered after the first load.
But my point is, that's after the first load. Server side templating doesn't have that issue. But now you have the complexity of a framework like react being in your application.
Even if the backend is node and using say nunjucks or something for templating. The same for python/jinja. There's often significantly less overhead and way less bytes to download.
The benefit of server side templating engines, is that there's not really much in them to debug. You can still use the inspector to debug it some. But using a debugger you can step through your templates as well, just like debugging react.
I am a product engineer and have helped build software from small startups, to manipulating hundreds of millions of data points. I write API's and make tools that make developers lives easier.
front to backend takes time yes. But what takes more, an html template, or react + components. And react/vue/angular/etc do take more bandwidth on the first load. Granted yes that is only once. This part I think is the minor part of the issue at hand. What is more complex, the html templating, or react with components.
Granted I am still learning react, most templating on the server side is dead simple. React and others are way more complex.
My point, is that all that complexity to me, so far, is for nothing. when templating is way simpler and using react adds the complexity and much more code to debug, test, integrate, etc. And the more thing that can break.
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Maybe worse performance on first render, but I am not sure if it is harder. With
console.log, client-side rendering might be easier to debug.Also, JavaScript might be as powerful as templating engine language, while being more familiar (and easier to debug in case of client side.)
About pre-rendering, it should be done to improve performance. That's why prerender-spa-plugin and Nuxt were born.
Beyond the first render, reactive component libraries syncs better with JavaScript than templating engine (where JavaScript's
querySelectorhas to be used.)I think we should assume equal knowledge of front end and back end language here. And I am not saying server side rendering isn't fast once rendered after the first load.
But my point is, that's after the first load. Server side templating doesn't have that issue. But now you have the complexity of a framework like react being in your application.
Even if the backend is node and using say nunjucks or something for templating. The same for python/jinja. There's often significantly less overhead and way less bytes to download.
The benefit of server side templating engines, is that there's not really much in them to debug. You can still use the inspector to debug it some. But using a debugger you can step through your templates as well, just like debugging react.
Actually, template engine is usually not about backend language, but rather a DSL of the template engine language...
For some reasons, template engine DSL is much more popular than simply string interpolation, or
lit-html, for example, for the backend.Also, what is usually slow, is the communication between frontend and backend.
front to backend takes time yes. But what takes more, an html template, or react + components. And react/vue/angular/etc do take more bandwidth on the first load. Granted yes that is only once. This part I think is the minor part of the issue at hand. What is more complex, the html templating, or react with components.
Granted I am still learning react, most templating on the server side is dead simple. React and others are way more complex.
My point, is that all that complexity to me, so far, is for nothing. when templating is way simpler and using react adds the complexity and much more code to debug, test, integrate, etc. And the more thing that can break.