That's not possible for SPAs outside localhost. Every single SPA i know is clunky, including gmail which is probably one of the most barebones. The lack of visual indication that something is happening or downloading alone is infuriating with SPAs. Most of them reinvent the browser in a very poor substitute that invariably fails to both be practical , and to mimic a native mobile app (i think the latter is the reason for so many SPAs.
SPAs are like CGI.. you only notice it when it is bad. I can assure you, you use many SPAs that are not slow and clunky, you just don't realize they are SPAs
I notice all of them , 100% of the time. Twitter has a fairly good one, but even that s very clunky. I'm not saying they are all slow, but they are clunky, jumpy and unpredictable, which in many ways is worse than a webpage like HN that is 100% consistent, but sometimes times out. Predictability for me is more important than pay-it-later responsiveness. E.g. when i press the Pay button i 'm OK with waiting 20 seconds for the payment to process. What's unacceptable is the button standing still, not doing anything until a few seconds later, at which time i ve pressed it 10 times.
Because like other commenters that chimed in, I can notice most SPAs, and all SPAs I've used had annoying performance problems. By problems I don't mean a sudden request that takes half a second, but that every UI interaction feels subtly slow.
I don't know where people get these performance targets of "below 100ms and users won't notice". I notice. I notice if UI responses take longer than two-three animation frames, the same way I notice when a game is running at 20 FPS and not 60 FPS.
Fastmail is laggy in places, but mostly OK. But I'm surprised at you choosing Google Office as an example. Google's office suite is a poster child of slow, clunky SPAs.
>including gmail which is probably one of the most barebones.
And yet, it still uses 130 flipping megabytes of RAM, more than Youtube does, as well as more CPU than Youtube does at idle, as well as requiring several seconds to "start up" when first opening a tab. Ridiculous.
I think gmail is a bit of a parody of itself nowadays. For extra hilarity someday, try pressing "c" for compose as the site is loading. Literally seconds to get a compose window showing.
Almost never had a problem with HN either