Beyond JAMstack: Next.js creator on hybrid rendering, TypeScript and Visual Studio Code

Guillermo Rauch, creator of the Next.js framework for building React applications, spoke to The Register about the just-released Next.js 9.3 and its hybrid approach to web application development. Rauch has been an advocate for the JAMstack for client applications, where JAM stands for "JavaScript, APIs and Markup". In its …

[Graham Dawson]

More and more I miss gopher.

[dbayly]

Static generated pages with dynamic javascript generated elements

There is truly nothing new under the sun. I had to dig in my archives to verify I was doing this in 2006. In a plugin to a now obsolete CMS, Manila. Do I get a beer?

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Static generated pages with dynamic javascript generated elements

Indeed.

This idea of combining SSG in a hybrid way and giving people the options, it's a really big thing

Yeah, it was a "big thing", at least for certain values of "big", between the popularization of AJAX and the popularization of SPAs (Single-Page Applications). Roughly 2004 - 2012, by my estimation.

But, yes, by all means, let's trot this wheel out again and proudly announce we've reinvented it.

(Personally, I found Rauch's gushing a bit obnoxious. "My thing does another thing! It's big! Visual Studio Code is amazing! See, it does amazing things! Like suggest completions! Typescript is wonderful! Your applications must be full of Stupid UI Tricks - they're great!")

[Mage]

'Just drop in this script' to run their ads.

It should be illegal in every jurisdiction. Adverts ought to be no more than a static image (served from the same host as the rest of the page) and with a plain link.

Anything else is immoral, invading privacy, misplaced greed and plain evil. Does targeted ads even work well, or is that fake snake oil perpetrated by Google and Facebook et al?

[Robert Grant]

Re: 'Just drop in this script' to run their ads.

Even if you never click on an ad, just building up profiles of millions of users is valuable data, I think.

[Geoffrey W]

Re: 'Just drop in this script' to run their ads.

RE: "Does targeted ads even work well"

This question has been asked ever since advertising was invented, in magazines, newspapers, radio, TV. It works.; it's been studied (do your own googling) If it did not work you can bet it would have been dropped long ago. And if random advertising works then you can bet targeted advertising works even better. It's sad but advertising is something I fear we will have to learn to live with. The only escape is if civilization collapses and I think I prefer advertising.

[Warm Braw]

The technology that takes JavaScript to the next level

I am often reminded, when I look at JavaScript applied to a web page, usually with a mixture of admiration at the ambition and despair at the implementation, of the comment made by Samuel Johnson in a different context:

... like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all

[Randy Hudson]

Next.js is written in TypeScript I believe, not JavaScript.