django-webpack-loader VS Next.js

Django Webpack Loader

Check out https://github.com/django-webpack/django-webpack-loader

About one month ago i started having a lot of doubts on my frontend. At first, instead of decoupling frontend from backend, i decided to use a library called django-webpack-loader that lets me serve webpack from Django templates, so i created a Vue app and served it from Django (i used a simple index.html view). So at this point i basically have a SPA that instead of being decoupled from Django, it's served by Django.

You can do this with Django and nothing else easily or you can use a third party library called Django-Webpack-Loader.

In addition to what's already been said (completely separate frontend & backend; or do a CDN include), I've worked in a codebase that uses django-webpack-loader.

The biggest challenge to using Django with React IMO is getting the right blend of isomorphic rendering down. I don't want to go full SPA with Django as this defeats the purpose of Django IMO. Most parts of the site I want server-rendered, while in stateful parts I want React. So, let's say I have a site with 20 different React "apps" (i.e. stateful components) that I want to distribute amongst my various Django sections (Django "Apps" within the same project). And I want to do that with one webpackconfig. How do I tell my webpack where to put all those react bundles? The answer I've found is django-webpack-loader[1], however as you can see in the Issues section, one of the biggest limitations here is the inability to chunk React (and other issues).

Does anyone have a solution they like for this kind of isomporphic Django problem?

1. https://github.com/owais/django-webpack-loader

// source: https://github.com/vercel/next.js/blob/canary/packages/next/src/lib/worker.ts#L121C15-L129C16 for (;;) { onActivity() const result = await Promise.race(\[ (this.\_worker as any)\[method\](...args), restartPromise, \]) if (result !== RESTARTED) return result if (onRestart) onRestart(method, args, ++attempts) }

https://github.com/vercel/next.js/discussions/27666 One of them said 'renaming folder to uppercase' might cause trouble. git might not recognize case-sensetive changes by default.

Next.js has long cemented itself as one of the front runners in the web framework world for JavaScript/TypeScript projects so we’re going to be using that. More specifically we’re going to be using V14 of Next.js which allows us to use some exciting new features like Server Actions and the App Router.

Web frameworks like Next.js will usually include this feature, but do check that they set the caching headers correctly!

Vite and Next.js are both top 5 modern development framework right now. They are both great depending on your use case so we’ll discuss 4 areas: Architecture, main features, developer experience and production readiness. After learning about these we’ll have a better idea of which one is best for your project.

> It’s important to be aware of what you are getting if you go with React, and what you are getting is a far cry from what a framework would offer, with all the corresponding pros and cons.

Would you like to elaborate on that?

In my experience, with something as great, size/ecosystem-wise as React, there will almost always be at least one "mainstream" package for whatever you might want to do with it, that integrates pretty well. Where a lot of things might come out of the box with a framework, with a library I often find myself just needing to install the "right" package, and from there it's pretty much the same.

For example, using https://angular.io/guide/i18n-overview or installing and using https://react.i18next.com/

Or something like https://angular.io/guide/form-validation out of the box, vs installing and using https://formik.org/

Or perhaps https://angular.io/guide/router vs https://reactrouter.com/en/main

Even adding something that's not there out of the box is pretty much the same, like https://primeng.org/ or https://primereact.org/

React will typically have more fragmentation and therefore also choice, but I don't see those two experiences as that different. Updates and version management/supply chain will inevitably be more of a mess with the library, admittedly.

Now, projects like Next https://nextjs.org/ exist and add what some might regard as the missing pieces and work well if you want something opinionated and with lots of features out of the box, but a lot of those features (like SSR) are actually pretty advanced and not always even necessary.

Next.js: For the website and the admin dashboard

Until the time of writing, there is no official example of how to enable runtime environmental variables in a Dockerized Next.js app, as utilizing unstable_noStore would only dynamically evaluate variables on the server (node.js runtime). There is also an interesting discussion regarding this topic on GitHub.

next.js is a very popular React framework. remix-adonisjs includes more functionality through the AdonisJS backend ecosystem, and should be easier to self-host and self-manage.

Cheryl Murphy is not only a dedicated full-stack web developer skilled in technologies like React, Next.js, and NestJs but also a community-driven professional who recently took on the role of volunteer project team lead at Web Dev Path. With a dual Bachelor's degree in Computing and Chemical Engineering from Monash University, Cheryl’s journey in tech is marked by a passion for building accessible solutions and a commitment to fostering community within tech.