Dilip reminds us that the Single Page Application is not the invention of HTML5. Rather, HTML5 enables single page applications to be created much more easily.
I worked on a project 13 years ago using Classic ASP; not ASP.Net. This application had a series of properties that were hierarchical in nature allowing the user to drill into more detail. At that time we used a feature only supported in Internet Explorer which was later formalized and released through the W3C as AJAX, and introduced in many different browsers. Of course we couldn’t use that because only Internet Explorer supported updates without a full postback.
Later I worked on a project utilizing a tree view to present hierarchical using classic ASP.Net Web Forms. Even then we were able to utilize AJAX and modify the DOM to manipulate the hierarchy.
Microsoft tried to make things easier with Update Panels enabling AJAX that would not postback the entire form. That was a real loser.
All this time MVC was featured in the JAVA world as a powerful pattern for Single Page Applications.
The point is that Single Page Applications have been around for a long time. In the Microsoft stack it has been painful to implement. With Microsoft finally adopting MVC, and the release of HTML5, we now have the ability of creating Single Page Applications without a lot of gymnastics or having to install other software on the client workstation in order to make them function.
Dilip writes:
Single Page Application has been in vogue for some time.
- In general many of us were managing it through iframes in which respective web pages were refreshed/loaded.
- There was no flicker and xmlhttp was used to make asynchronous calls.
- But, advent of html5 has made a revolution which many browsers still have to implement. Hence, we are cautious not to push it hard as many of our clients are still in ie8 to ie10. And overnight we can’t expect them to switch over to ie11 or equivalent other browsers.
- So, in nutshell, we have already geared up for extensively utilizing html5 but are waiting for right time to push it.
- I would request all developers to take this major change of html5 seriously and also gear up for latest versions of say jquery like tools.
The major point Dilip exposes is the same one we have faced for a long time. How long do we wait to take advantage of modern capabilities because our application won’t execute on older browsers? Can we count on HTML5? Is the continuous release process of browsers such as Chrome enough for us to start using HTML5 today?
Share your thoughts here or by email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben