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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•1y ago

Comments

copypaper•1y ago
I would personally never touch a frontend not written with a framework. Sounds like a terrible developer experience--especially with a team. But from reading your article, it sounds like your issue is with React itself. I would recommend you try Svelte, it sounds like what you're looking for. It's as close to vanilla js as you can get with all the benefits of a framework.
LAC-Tech•1y ago
What benefits of a framework?

I think that's why I wrote this - I almost completely fail to see them.

proc0•1y ago
I think React caved in to wider adoption pressure to introduce abstractions that are intuitive on the surface level but are costly in terms of large scale complexity.

> It's "declarative" right up until you're debugging stateful hooks, or resorting to useRef, or trying to reason about when a "component" re-renders

Maybe they should have modularized the core library more and have these things be separate, because the core idea of a uniflow pattern with reactivity is good.

I think what happened, at least in frontend, is that the industry pushed away from having engineers do any design or architecting on the frontend. All of these high level patterns have been "outsourced" to frameworks, and the result usually is something that has trouble scaling and adjusting to whatever domain it's in.

LAC-Tech•1y ago
Maybe they should have modularized the core library more and have these things be separate, because the core idea of a uniflow pattern with reactivity is good.

That's what SolidJS does. IE the signal implementation is completely stand alone. I feel like it's better at doing what react purports to do then react is.

* think what happened, at least in frontend, is that the industry pushed away from having engineers do any design or architecting on the frontend. All of these high level patterns have been "outsourced" to frameworks*

I don't think react patterns are particularly high level, or do they save you from architecture. Whether it's vanilla JS or react, you still have to design.

proc0•1y ago
Oh I haven't looked at Solidjs yet, interesting will take a look. And yeah you may still need to design your application, but having hooks be something that is out-of-the-box pushes you into certain patterns and needs to be actively ignored to avoid its design influence. I've worked in large codebases where they make almost everything into hooks, and they start getting ridiculous, breaking composability but at the same time giving the illusion that you are making your code more modular.
GianFabien•1y ago
I write web front-ends for industrial embedded systems. So my experience might differ from business WebApps.

In my experience it requires a longer learning curve for the various frameworks than to simply learn the relevant Web API. My learning is very much JIT and over time I have built up a robust class library that gets my stuff done. When I get stuck ChatGPT suggests fixes that sometimes work and spare me from losing more hair.

LAC-Tech•1y ago
My experience too - part of what I found is how much about how react worked I'd forgotten. But the browser itself was easier to pick up.

Microsoft is offering buyouts to 60k workers

https://twitter.com/kobeissiletter/status/2114745896315359305
1•taubek•20s ago•0 comments

Tabcove – automatic, local-only tab backups for Chrome and Edge

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tabcove-save-restore-back/ccmjgbajjpimmhdnacanbbhmfjecjnlp
1•umairtahir•56s ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Do you still read clean code and software architecture books?

1•pelcg•2m ago•0 comments

Halide for Duo: Electric Boogaluo

https://www.lux.camera/halide-for-duo/
1•johnbehnke•2m ago•0 comments

Essential Tools for Live Video Stream Monitoring

https://www.red5.net/blog/3-essential-tools-for-live-video-stream-monitoring/
1•mondainx•4m ago•0 comments

GPT-6.1 Terra

https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-6-1-terra/
4•meetpateltech•4m ago•0 comments

SpaceX closes $40B debt deal for AI chips

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/26/spacex-closes-40-billion-debt-deal-for-ai-chips-elon-musk-.html
2•Betelbuddy•6m ago•0 comments

Walter Koenig, the Russian Crewman Chekov on 'Star Trek,' Dies at 90

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/walter-koenig-dead-chekov-star-trek-russian-1236740088/
4•gumby•6m ago•1 comments

Anthropic Reveals It Will Pay SpaceX Up to $120.5B for AI Compute

https://teslanorth.com/2026/10/26/anthropic-s1-spacex-120b-compute/
1•entryleveljobsc•6m ago•0 comments

Is technology bossing us around too much?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/lifestyle/is-technology-bossing-us-around-too-much
3•billybuckwheat•6m ago•0 comments

Defense of Japan 2026 Annual White Paper Digest [pdf]

https://www.mod.go.jp/j/press/wp/wp2026/pdf/DOJ2026_Digest_EN.pdf
1•sb057•6m ago•0 comments

GPT 6.1 Terra

https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-6.1-terra
2•pcwelder•7m ago•0 comments

Meta Employees Denounce Interference in Brazilian Elections

https://www.panamericandispatch.org/p/meta-employees-denounce-interference
4•guitcastro•8m ago•0 comments

Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11

https://blog.enlyth.com/posts/oldest-windows-gui-app-win-11/
3•enlyth•9m ago•0 comments

Consumer credit costs in Poland are rising despite falling rates

https://download.ssrn.com/2026/9/25/7525781.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Securit...
1•tszymaniak•10m ago•0 comments

So you say you hate 'surveillance pricing'

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/19/business/surveillance-prices-government-bans
20•mooreds•11m ago•0 comments

In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn't Real

https://www.404media.co/in-leaked-audio-flock-ceo-tells-cops-backlash-to-the-company-isnt-real/
2•Frieren•11m ago•1 comments

A Man from the Future: Why Johnny Can't Stop Abstracting

http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-man-from-future-why-johnny-cant.html
8•aray07•16m ago•0 comments

What Are Cipher Suites – TLS Algorithm Negotiation Explained

https://www.qcecuring.com/education/cryptography-fundamentals/what-are-cipher-suites
1•eustoria•22m ago•0 comments

A cinematic 3D graph view for Obsidian

https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/galaxy-view
1•eustoria•23m ago•0 comments

Survey: What do you use to manage your cap table?

https://tally.so/r/J11O8Y
1•MKBSP•23m ago•0 comments

Tiny Computers for iPhone Duo

https://www.fountaininteractive.com/TinyComputers/
2•eustoria•23m ago•1 comments

Apple's Foldable iPhone Duo Draws Early Complaints of the Screen Cracking

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-26/apple-s-foldable-iphone-duo-draws-early-compla...
3•0xedb•23m ago•0 comments

Code as schema: how we generate the Increase API

https://increase.com/articles/code-as-schema
10•jackflintermann•23m ago•1 comments

Cubic Boron Arsenide: An emerging semiconductor (2025)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2590238525001742
2•peter_d_sherman•24m ago•0 comments

What WordPress Calendar Vulnerabilities Reveal About Trusting User Content

https://www.cybersecurity-insiders.com/what-wordpress-calendar-vulnerabilities-reveal-about-trust...
2•mooreds•25m ago•0 comments

Small Actions Spark Movements

https://www.topplers.org/
1•mooreds•25m ago•0 comments

Which Request Burned the CPU? Span-Tagged Profiles on Virtual Threads

https://www.sku20.dev/blog/which-request-burned-the-cpu-span-tagged-profiles-on-virtual-threads/
1•duckydude20•25m ago•0 comments

PerfectHead is back: Perfect Dark's cut Game Boy Camera feature, restored

https://twitter.com/zeronecool/status/2114692130417394128
2•failedartifact•25m ago•1 comments

Should Snap start selling data for RL?

1•vedootmetoot•27m ago•0 comments