Remember when websites just loaded a block of text, instead of 120mb of javascript to "dynamically" load the exact same block of text?
@aria And for anything fancy, there's serverside PHP and stuff!

@IceWolf @aria

React has server-side rendering too. The reasons for monstrously bloated web pages go beyond what framework you are using

@gloriouscow @aria I mean, that's why I said "and stuff",

(also fuck React, but server-side-rendered React is probably significantly less shitty than normal React)

@IceWolf @aria

sorry i sort of just blacked out entirely after you said PHP

@gloriouscow @aria hehe PHP is pretty great honestly :3

I also love Perl, too! The horror! *tongueloll*

@gloriouscow @aria PHP's whole "it's just HTML or whatever but then you can just slap in PHP code anywhere and bam, instant templating" feels like magic.

It's obviously terrible if you need more structure but not everything needs that (and you CAN still use PHP that way, see Symfony, I tried learning Symfony and just didn't really get the point, but PHP's been adding more and more features over the years, like types and stuff, to make that an easier thing to do).

@gloriouscow Modern PHP is...Fine now. Its not my favorite, but the ecosystem is significantly less ahit then it was 15 years ago when I had to work with it full time

@IceWolf @aria

@aria All part of the running battle between Marc Andreessen and Javascript to be the greatest blight on western civilization to emerge from Netscape's husk.

(to keep the competition fair: javascript has global reach and Marc much less so; so the competition is geographically scoped)

@aria theres a 256k club or somesuch where you get in if your site is less than 250k