Okay, I'm sold on HTML being where the content should be on page load. My next question is are there any frameworks that can assist with this stitching together of content? I'm afraid my ignorance is showing here, but I can't off the top of my head list any.
The web paradigm that I've grown up with is the single-threaded dynamic content generation one, most recently using MVC, but with any server-side logic. The concept of parallel rendering of content and a "stitching" together of HTML is new to me.
I'm also curious as to the best practices surrounding page linking when the behavior specifies something like no screen flash. It seems like all that content (like, the whole page) would have to be loaded with AJAX.. then you're right back where you started with loading content with JS. Maybe it's forgivable as long as the initial page load returns a complete set of content?
Perhaps there is a place where I can learn more about the logistics of progressive enhancement.
Thanks for being willing to answer my questions about this. It's something I've always wanted hashed out in my head from an opponent of these frameworks.
"The content here isn't tied exclusively to the behaviour layer."
Can you elaborate on a situation where that the content and the behaviour are tied together, and what you would do in that case?
From my understanding, Facebook's BigPipe loads content in modules to reduce user perceived latency. If I'm building X site and wanted that same behavior (since I've heard on several occasions that there is a direct correlation between page load times and user engagement), is my only option to sacrifice SEO?
What would you do if you required SEO enhancement AND dynamic loading of content? Are you supposed to just let that portion of the site go without indexing? Surely there are sites that have both requirements.