Skit: A pure JavaScript front end for building better web clients

by nej • 11 years ago

71 17 11 years ago

benaiah• 11 years ago

    > > You seriously made another module loader?
    
    > Yeah. There are several reasons why:
    > To create a new-feeling environment that is clearly not node,
    > because you’re writing code that runs in node and IE9 and Chrome
    > etc. It shouldn’t feel like any old node.js module.

Why shouldn't it feel like any old node.js module? Nearly all the work in JS packaging of late has been to abstract the differences so that we can use the well-established node packaging system on both ends. We're already able to do it with stuff like babel and browserify.

taylorhughes6• 11 years ago

[skit author here] -- skit handles CSS and multi-file module definitions (with submodules) in a novel way, that's probably more important to me than the reason you pasted.

enahs-sf• 11 years ago

given that your handle is nej, i'm assuming you know that skit means literally "shit" in swedish. men jag tycker den har är en faktiskt bra ide.

techwizrd• 11 years ago

It's mentioned at the bottom of the page and in a Github issue[0]

0: https://github.com/clusterinc/skit/issues/4

kellysutton• 11 years ago

Looks neat. For those looking for this functionality in a more mature framework, check out Ember FastBoot: https://github.com/tildeio/ember-cli-fastboot

vans• 11 years ago

Pre-render on server side is the way to go, no more empty html skeletons taking a while to fulfill after the first request, and you still get the reactive style of modern web app.

taylorhughes6• 11 years ago

❤

pdkl95• 11 years ago

Thank you for actually serving up a proper web page (initial server-side rendering)!

Using javascript to enhance the page to provide faster loading or other features is great, but it is important to have at least something on the page when javascript is not available.

amelius• 11 years ago

Featuring nearly 100% shared server and client-side code

If the code can run on the client as well as on the server, does this mean the client has direct database access?

How well does that work out for the number of required round-trips?

taylorhughes6• 11 years ago

the skit frontend abstracts only a few things for server- and client-side code: http requests, cookies and redirects. so you write a REST API client in JS and populate the initial page state with it, and when you wake up in the browser you don't have to make any more requests (until the user does something).

curiousjorge• 11 years ago

Two years ago I would've been excited but now I've developed a filter for anything with javascript and front end or framework in the same sentence if they are not backed by a major corporation, simply based on the reason that there have been so much abandonware in this landscape, I think even for Google it's been tough sell. I think that React is the way to do it but slow to adopt it especially because I'm so comfortable with jQuery and never had the need to invent new ways of doing things.

spinningarrow• 11 years ago

But jQuery is not backed by a major corporation. And GWT was backed by a major corporation, but it doesn't seem to be doing too well.

I don't think being backed by a major corporation means much.

taylorhughes6• 11 years ago

I wrote a post about how ridiculous it was to write another javascript library (about skit): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9342133

taylorhughes6• 11 years ago

Wow just saw this was on HN again — I was traveling yesterday. There was a fun discussion thread a few months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9342133

DaGardner• 11 years ago

this might be cool until you have to debug some weird bug and do not know if it has to do with client or server code...

taylorhughes6• 11 years ago

so far in building LaunchKit with skit (https://launchkit.io/) that hasn't happened. (I was worried about that, too.) it's surprisingly natural. I find the server-side parsing/running actually catches a ton of stupid typos (with nice error messages) quickly before I have to find them in the Chrome developer tools...

Egregore• 11 years ago

How is this framework similar/different with Meteor.js ?

Skit: A pure JavaScript front end for building better web clients

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