We've worked on a lot of different types of websites: static sites for credit card companies, social media platforms, learning management systems, content management systems, and ecommerce to name a few. We've also trained hundreds of development teams with our training company, React Training. These teams build websites we all use regularly. Based on our personal development experience and our client's products, we built Remix to be able to handle the dynamic nature of both the front-end and the backend of a web project.
The Remix philosophy can be summed up in four points:
When a page has a data dependency, Remix favors fetching and processing that data on the server at request time, rather than making it a part of the build/deploy pipeline. Couple this with thoughtful HTTP caching techniques, CDNs, and built-in Browser/HTML features to achieve optimal performance, for both the users and you, the developer.
These technologies have been around for a long time. They're solid. Remix embraces them completely. Combining HTTP Caching, Remix's focus on URLs for assets, dynamic server rendering, and HTML features like <link rel=prefetch>, you have all the tools to make your app snappy. Browsers and HTML got really good in the 20+ years we've been using it.
While most recent frameworks only have read APIs for data, Remix has both read and write. HTML <form> has been the staple for data mutations since the 90s, Remix embraces and augments that API. This enables the data layer of a Remix app to function with or without JavaScript on the page.
Adding JavaScript allows Remix to speed up the user experience in two ways on a page transition:
Also, with JavaScript on the page, Remix can provide the developer with APIs to make the UX nicer on page transitions:
Finally, since data mutation is built into Remix, it knows when to refetch data that could have been changed after a mutation, ensuring different parts of your page dont' get out of sync.
The point is not so much to make the app work without JavaScript, it's more about keeping the simpler client/server model. Being able to leave JavaScript at the door is a nice side-effect.
This one is more for us. We've been educators for the 5 years before Remix. Our tagline is Build Better Websites. We also think of it with a little extra on the end: Build Better Websites, Sometimes with Remix. If you get good at Remix, you will accidentally get good at web development in general.
The APIs Remix provides makes it convenient to use the fundamental Browser/HTTP/JavaScript, but those technologies are not hidden from you.
For example, getting CSS on specific layouts in your app is done with a route module method named links, where you return an array of objects with the values of an HTML <link> tag. We abstract enough to optimize the performance of your app (they're objects so we can dedupe them, preload them) without hiding the underlying technology. Learn how to prefetch assets in Remix with links and you've learned how to prefetch assets in any website.
Remix is unlike anything you've used before. Now get out of here and start building better websites!
