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Comment by tomc1985 | Hacker News Reader

tomc1985

Why do these things even need to be an SPA? What function does that serve when the standardized and infinitely more compatible form-with-a-bit-of-javascript approach works just as well if not better?

I work on one such project and it absolutely drives me nuts -- it's a rails app, but the customer front-end (which is literally just a form to fill out) is a React SPA. There is nothing there that couldn't be done with Turbolinks and some light JS for validations/popups.

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Because that's the mainstream, that's what's easy to procure, hire for, negotiate with vendors, that's the default, the preferred, the future proof, the supported.

And the tech doesn't really matter. I hate React with a passion, because Angular is so much more sane - in my experience. But it's fine. It's mature, it can be made to perform completely well.

The tech doesn't really matter. The people doesn't matter either. Even the costs doesn't matter as much as people think. What matters is political will, procurement culture, so systems and structures. This will influence (and bring) all the others in line.

Depressingly correct.

Variations of "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM", repeated forever.

No-one got fired for writing an SPA, but we did decide not to renew the contract for the next major update.

> the future proof

No, not that.

When the only tool you know is a hammer you tend to just go around smashing things

How can a government contractor reasonably justify a price tag that's on par with fancy bloated non-government sites, for an no nonsense form + js approach?

Costs the same as what you would otherwise pay, plus it actually works?

>plus it actually works?

Heh. "That was the most unkindest cut of all."

https://www.google.com/search?q=unkindest+cut+of+all+quote

Also, "the emperor's new clothes".

Both relevant.

> plus it actually works

That’s the problem. Maintenance is big money for government contractors.

Because they're a business that will charge as much as they can absolutely get away with and will do their best to make the project and maintenance costs as bloated as possible.

The question is why there aren't people in the government with either the technical ability or the political clout to audit and push back at any point in the project.

It's really the people writing the requirements who are driving a lot of these things. Customers are used to Gmail, FB etc. and want similar experiences.

Because they want to program like they are mobile apps

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