JAMstack: Let's talk about future :)

#1

Just recently there was a post about SEO and GatsbyJS which reminded me about the current JAMstack trend.

What does JAMstack stand for? Javascript, APIs and Markup.

You basically connect all those, pre-render pages and send them to the user from a CDN. There is no server backend. Well there is, but there isn’t. Let’s say you don’t have to handle a server backend to deliver dynamic content. But you do…or someone else does it for you. It could be a headless CMS(cloud or self-hosted) or Amazon Lambda functions. Or it could be your own PHP server that delivers graphQL. But it doesn’t have to be. I hope I am making myself totally clear.

Anyway coming back to JAMStack and Wappler. Wappler already has a reactive frontend engine(App connect), they were considering markup(templates) and they provide natively an API. Do they? They do. All SC files are accesible as an API. And you can run php serverless functions. Might not be ideal, but you can.

The caveat is that App Connect and Server Connect are tightly integrated so it makes it unfit for a JAMstack.

On the other side it seems NodeJS is also on the table again which make serverless functions less of a pain. It would be nice that if NodeJS is under consideration it wouldn’t just be another server engine for Wappler but could also allow exporting SCs as serverless functions with our without GraphQL support.

Also, Jamstack is ideal also for PWAs.

So JAMstack? What do you guys think? Future? or Smoke?

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#2

Well @JonL, I am a great admirer of your enquiring mind, adventurous spirit and your location on the bell curve you showed a few days ago…

I am quite a few steps behind you in technological knowledge, but pretty close in spirit! :slight_smile:

I’ll need some time to research some of the technologies you describe, but what I think I hear you saying is:

Why don’t we get rid of the full time paid for PHP web server and our total dependence on it. We can deliver our app code from a Content Delivery Network and access our data via APIs to and from some platform we just pay for each time it is actually used.

You then seem to be saying that nodeJS is more the way forwards for creating that pay-as-you-use back end (like with AWS Lambda), rather than PHP… so why doesn’t Wappler support the development of a node.JS back end which is more detached from the front end than the Server Side is in Wappler now… and all the communication happens via API calls which are enhanced in nature through this standard called GraphQL.

Is that a good summary of what you are saying? :thinking:

“Is this the future?” I hear you asking.

Well it sounds like a plan… it seems to me that PHP is amazing but maybe a bit last century…

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#3

Technology deployment is $ agnostic. There is no real difference in monetary terms between both approaches. If and how much you pay really depends on the needs, but yes it’s a good summary :slight_smile:

#4

So what are the compelling benefits of JAMstack to justify the investment in a new way?

Is it mainly to make a Web App more Progressive?

#5
  • Performance
  • Scalability
  • Security
  • Maintainability
  • Some people say lower costs :stuck_out_tongue: