> Traditional frameworks hydrate entire pages with JavaScript. Even if you've got a simple blog post with one interactive widget, the whole page gets the JavaScript treatment. Astro flips this on its head. Your pages are static HTML by default, and only the bits that need interactivity become JavaScript "islands."
Back in my days we called this "progressive enhancements" (or even just "web pages"), and was basically the only way we built websites with a bit of dynamic behavior. Then SPAs were "invented", and "progressive enhancements" movement became something less and less people did.
Now it seems that is called JavaScript islands, but it's actually just good ol' web pages :) What is old is new again.
Back in my days we called this "progressive enhancements" (or even just "web pages"), and was basically the only way we built websites with a bit of dynamic behavior. Then SPAs were "invented", and "progressive enhancements" movement became something less and less people did.
Now it seems that is called JavaScript islands, but it's actually just good ol' web pages :) What is old is new again.
Bit of history for the new webdevs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement