Our Journey into Frontend Experimentation

Written By Alastair Cole

1. Charting the Course: Our Journey into Frontend Experimentation with HTMX

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced web development landscape, finding the perfect balance between performance and simplicity is more challenging than ever. Our team set out to explore new frontiers in frontend development, testing innovative tools to speed up our development process while keeping our codebase lean. This post kicks off our series by sharing the motivation behind our journey and what we hoped to learn.

The Rationale Behind Our Journey

We embarked on this exploration with one goal in mind: to build a faster, more efficient web app without getting bogged down in endless JavaScript. By experimenting with minimal-JS solutions like HTMX, we aimed to reduce overhead and simplify our frontend architecture. This approach was especially enticing given our backend setup with FastAPI.

What We Hoped to Discover

Our primary objective was to see if HTMX could:

  • Cut down the need for extensive JavaScript by leveraging standard HTML attributes.

  • Offer a lightweight yet dynamic way to manage UI interactions.

  • Simplify tasks like making AJAX requests and updating the DOM. We were eager to compare this lean approach against the convenience of established frameworks like React and Next.js.

Overview of the Series

In this series, we’ll break down our journey into the following parts:

  • Why We Tried HTMX: Our initial excitement and the promise of a minimalist approach.

  • The HTMX Hurdle: The challenges we encountered as we dived deeper.

  • Firebase Auth vs. HTMX: A deep dive into the complexities of authentication.

  • Switching Back to Next.js: How speed and simplicity eventually won us over.

  • Lessons Learned: The key takeaways from our experiment. Each article will offer an in-depth look into different facets of our journey.

Conclusion

We invite you to join us as we explore the highs and lows of experimenting with new technologies. Whether you’re a developer looking to streamline your workflow or simply curious about the latest in frontend development, there’s something in this series for you.

Alastair Cole

Co-Founder & CEO

Alastair started his career in digital marketing, using technology to create award-winning campaigns and innovative products for world-leading brands including Google, Apple and Tesco. As a practice lead responsible for business development, he became aware that the performance of sales staff improved when they were coached more regularly. His vision is that technology can be used to support sales managers as they work to maximise the effectiveness of their teams.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastaircole/
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