Rendering done right

What's the best way to render your site or app?

JavaScript frameworks typically render your page in the browser. But until that happens users stare at a blank page. And what if something goes wrong? This meetup we focus on different rendering strategies to get the best and most reliable user experience.

We'll present and discuss different rendering strategies, client- and server-side (isomorphic / universal), with and without frameworks, with hydration and fastboot. Sounds abstract? You can read this article on rendering strategies (https://www.voorhoede.nl/en/blog/progressive-enhancement-for-javascript-app-developers/#render-strategically) and study this image by Paul Lewis (https://twitter.com/aerotwist/status/729712502943174657) illustrating these concepts:

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/2/8/e/d/600_451630477.jpeg

Event schedule

18:00 Doors open, food & drinks
19:00 Introduction
19:15 Enhance your HTML - Jasper Moelker
20:00 Break
20:30 Isomorphic React: Getting it right - Gert Hengeveld
21:15 More drinks

Enhance your HTMLJasper Moelker (@jbmoelker (https://twitter.com/jbmoelker))

Jasper is a front-end architect at De Voorhoede (https://www.voorhoede.nl). De Voorhoede's default render strategy is start with a basic functional experience which works everywhere for everyone. Then use feature detection and enhance into a rich experience on capable browsers and devices.

During his talk Jasper will go into the process and technology behind the progressive enhancement of some recent Voorhoede projects, like funda.nl (http://www.funda.nl/), HotelSpecials.at (https://www.hotelspecials.at/) and eBay's 2dehands.be (http://www.2dehands.be/). He will discuss applied techniques, like adding async form handling, manipulating browser history, using critical CSS, font observers and async asset loading.

Isomorphic React: Getting it rightGert Hengeveld (@GHengeveld (https://twitter.com/GHengeveld))

Gert is a full stack developer at Xebia (https://xebia.com/). Gert will focus on applying progressive enhancement to React. React is well known for its ability to render on any platform. Rendering on the server for SEO purposes is a big benefit to public apps and websites, but it also enhances the reliability and robustness of your app. Flaky internet connections are commonplace, so you should not rely on scripts to be loaded. Legacy browsers also have a hard time dealing with your extensive scripting, so it's best to cut the mustard and present them with static pages. Simply rendering the initial page load on the server isn't going to cut it. Forms and links are likely to be broken. True isomorphism is only achieved by applying progressive enhancement techniques to make sure your app works even without JavaScript. This talk will show you how it can be done using React.