I agree on the benefits of SPA, but there is a dealbreaker when it comes to forums - you want it to be searchable, and that currently means using server generated templates for SEO purposes (or a setup using PhantomJS to pre-render the pages each time, but that is even more suboptimal, especially for a potentially fast moving BB).
Re:NodeBB: Node.js-based forum software
by psychobunny on Monday June 23, 2014 @04:15PM
(#7934330)
NodeBB's engine supports both cold-loads from server-side and ajax-loaded pages. So if you browse NodeBB via JS-disabled browser for example, it will still work (read-only)
Re:NodeBB: Node.js-based forum software
by CMCDragonkai on Monday June 23, 2014 @07:28PM
(#7935395)
You can try SnapSearch https://snapsearch.io/ which uses Firefox to render SPA sites.
Real-time updates, differential updates, cacheable partials, free distributed rendering, to name a few.
Specifically in the realm of cacheable partials, every single site out there that repeats elements between pages could benefit as a well-architected SPA. It's analagous to h.264 vs GIF: you can compress/cache the similar chunks and only update the deltas and save bandwidth, making your platform more scalable. Sure, GIF can compress each individual frame, but h.264 improves on that dramatically by compressing in another dimension. The essence, in my mind, of the SPA is keeping your HTTP requests DRY.