I used to do this in the early 2000s! Some folks back then would ask whether i was afraid that clicking a link (which loads a "new" web page) would slow things down and create an awful experience for users...but, my team and I would really focus on keeping web pages slim/lightweight to begin with...so it rarely was a problem. I don't think we were geniuses or anything like that, but keeping things light (always and from the beginning) enabled us to "cheat" (like this "hack" of the links in the column headers) in ways that were beneficial but with very low risk. Sometimes it took an extra moment or two at the beginning of an effort...but it ALWAYS paid off down the road, and in many different ways.
So instead of using JS to sort the table directly, now you make a JS fetch() request to sort the table?!
It does make sense in one situation, if the table is a large server-side paginated one and the sorting is really an ORDER BY clause. But for a basic table that fits entirely on the client, it doesn't make sense at all. There are tiny JS libraries that will make <table>s sortable when you add a particular class name.
[−]everybodyknows · 2026-08-20 Thu 21:18 UTC ·
link
> tiny JS libraries that will make <table>s sortable
It's really easy to do this with server rendered HTML. Put a link with the sort param in the column headers and be done.
It does make sense in one situation, if the table is a large server-side paginated one and the sorting is really an ORDER BY clause. But for a basic table that fits entirely on the client, it doesn't make sense at all. There are tiny JS libraries that will make <table>s sortable when you add a particular class name.
What are some good ones?
It is far more resources hungry when dealing with beyond 50 rows or more.
Puts needless pressure on backend.
It is not a good idea when sending whole dataset to client is feasible/better choice.