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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•7mo ago

Comments

copypaper•7mo 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•7mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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.

HP Wolf Security Threat Insights December 2025

https://threatresearch.ext.hp.com/hp-wolf-security-threat-insights-report-december-2025/
1•dexter_it•2m ago•0 comments

The Savage Empathy of the Mosh Pit

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/12/an-ode-to-moshpits/685025/
1•petethomas•2m ago•0 comments

GPT Image 1.5 AI

https://gptimage15.ai/
1•lovezac•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Python packages for FastAPI apps – auth, logging, config, LLM, more

https://github.com/Netrun-Systems/netrun-oss
1•DanielGarza•6m ago•1 comments

Show HN: I wrote a small lib to turn a USB gamepad into a Bluetooth one

https://github.com/skorokithakis/bluetooth-gamepad
1•stavros•7m ago•0 comments

Quantum Energy Teleportation Achieved Using W-State Entanglement

https://quantumzeitgeist.com/quantum-energy-teleportation-achieved-in-multi-qubit-systems-using-w...
1•CGMthrowaway•7m ago•0 comments

Consumer goods firms cut CEO tenures short in push for growth

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/consumer-goods-firms-cut-ceo-tenu...
1•bikenaga•11m ago•0 comments

Luigi Pirandello's Broken Men

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/luigi-pirandello-one-none-grand-review/
2•Caiero•13m ago•0 comments

Imagining All the People. Poetry Inspired by Beatles Lyrics

https://www.thebeatleworksltd.com
1•tramtrist•15m ago•0 comments

For artificial intelligence to thrive, it must explain itself (2018)

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/02/17/for-artificial-intelligence-to-thrive...
1•julianpye•16m ago•1 comments

Rust 2025: Go, AI and Why It's Not Everywhere (Yet) – Jon Gjengset Explains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOSxuaDgl3s
1•Brysonbw•20m ago•0 comments

AI, DevOps, and Kubernetes: Kelsey Hightower on What's Next

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdUbTyvrfKo
1•Brysonbw•21m ago•0 comments

Trump's Crypto Corruption Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpCxV-cRY4o
1•doener•23m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Open-source MCP OIDC provider

https://www.tigrisdata.com/blog/mcp-oidc-provider/
1•ovaistariq•23m ago•0 comments

CC: Google Labs AI agent for email+calendar

https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/cc-ai-agent/
1•zhyder•25m ago•0 comments

Show HN: TopBanner – Convert Site Visitors to Customers Without Annoying Popups

https://topbanner.app
1•kapersky11•28m ago•1 comments

Making LLMs Useful

https://boliv.substack.com/p/improving-the-usability-and-user
1•brunooliv•29m ago•0 comments

Needle Inspector – Inspect any Three.js project [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSFqZSqzGGw
2•marwi•30m ago•1 comments

Taiwan's Receipt Lottery: The Genius Tax Trick on Desperation

https://www.pablomusumeci.com/p/taiwans-receipt-lottery-the-genius
2•prawn•33m ago•0 comments

Can You Ace This Jane Austen 250th Birthday Trivia Quiz?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/16/books/review/16TBR-AUSTEN-QUIZ.html
1•whack•36m ago•0 comments

Americans overestimate how many social media users post harmful content

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/12/pgaf310/8377954?login=false
10•bikenaga•42m ago•8 comments

More than 100 rally against data centers at Michigan Capitol

https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2025/12/16/lansing-state-capitol-data-center...
2•rmason•43m ago•1 comments

How I Trained My Memory

https://fivetwelvethirteen.substack.com/p/how-i-trained-my-memory
1•yorwba•44m ago•0 comments

Data centers and their energy use: Trends in state capitals

https://www.carbon-direct.com/insights/data-centers-and-their-energy-use-trends-in-state-capitals
1•atlasunshrugged•44m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Skouriasmeno Papaki – S3 transfer tool, up to 12x faster than AWS-CLI

https://github.com/NetViper-Labs/skouriasmeno-papaki
4•NetViper•47m ago•0 comments

Oracle's $248 Billion Rent is Another Al 'Bombshell'

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-16/ai-bubble-oracle-delivers-next-bombshell-wi...
5•voxadam•50m ago•1 comments

Show HN: F. Incantatem – CLI, Decorator & notebook ext. for traceback analysis

https://github.com/aguilar-ai/fincantatem
2•Paralus•51m ago•0 comments

Officials Say Gunman Likely 'Cased' Campus Before Brown Shooting

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/us/brown-university-shooter-search-investigation.html
3•Bender•52m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Trolley Problem Arena

https://www.aitrolleyproblem.com/
6•justintorre75•56m ago•1 comments

Moving Cloudflare out of the critical path

https://duggan.ie/posts/moving-cloudflare-out-of-the-critical-path
2•duggan•56m ago•0 comments