How would you write a web app for durability/longevity?
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(I kinda feel there's a word on the tip of my tongue that better expresses this)
A friend wrote a side project web app in Angular 1 back when that was cool. We continued using it for some years and then wrote up a list of new features that should be added. The friend said "Okay, but first let us decide if we should rewrite it in React or Angular 4, because Angular 1 is totally obsolete". We decided on Angular 4 and then half a year passed without us really touching it. Now he looked at it and said "Angular really didn't take off, let's try Vue"...
There is one really important requirement for this app: it has to be maintained over at least 10 years. It's an online songbook for churches, and realistically we would work on it in our spare time for 1-2 years and then just use it. Is there any web framework where there is no risk of it being discontinued in that time?
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KISS. Just use plain javascript and jquery. If it's not too complicated there's no need to use a whizz bang framework
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@jaloopa Or better yet, no JS at all.
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@marczellm said in How would you write a web app for durability/longevity?:
It's an online songbook for churches
Why would you need any web framework, client- or server-side for that? Just generate the pages and store them in a folder on a web server.
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@marczellm You wouldn't. Your best bet right now is to write a Windows desktop application, carefully following the API contracts to the letter. I wouldn't even necessarily assume that HTTP would exist as a protocol-- once Chrome and the idiots in charge of the web are done making everything HTTPS, they might start on making everything HTTP/2.
Microsoft sucks now, but they're still better at backwards compatibility than anybody else.
If it HAS to be a web app, then yeah what Jaloopa says. JavaScript and DOM aren't that hard. You don't need the super-nifto libraries that add very little at the cost of tons of complication and annoyance. Just write the fucking JavaScript. It's really not at all difficult.
Every dependency (even jQuery, although it's orders of magnitude better than most) is going to be working against your goals here.
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@ben_lubar said in How would you write a web app for durability/longevity?:
Why would you need any web framework, client- or server-side for that? Just generate the pages and store them in a folder on a web server.
Every church has its own repertoire, so we already allow for creating songs in a basic editor. There is a search box. Search by tags. We plan to have transposition. Etc.
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@blakeyrat said in How would you write a web app for durability/longevity?:
Your best bet right now is to write a Windows desktop application, carefully following the API contracts to the letter.
I would completely agree, except a huge part of usage happens on mobile.
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@marczellm said in How would you write a web app for durability/longevity?:
I would completely agree, except a huge part of usage happens on mobile.
I doubt there's anything you can do on mobile to make an app last 10 years without maintenance. So yah, web is probably the best bet in that case.
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Django for backend, Bootstrap for UI
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@blakeyrat said in How would you write a web app for durability/longevity?:
I doubt there's anything you can do
on mobileto make an app last 1 year without maintenance.FTF the sad, sorry reality.