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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•11mo ago

Comments

copypaper•11mo 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•11mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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.

Open links in whatever browser, app, or profile you need

https://github.com/fluffypony/yojam
1•8ig8•1m ago•0 comments

Fix Your Planning and Stop Missing Deadlines: Why Story Points Win

https://bastrich.tech/story-points/
1•bastrich•1m ago•0 comments

ChatGPT 5.4 Pro Standard Mode – Adaptive Thinking or Nerfing Model?

https://community.openai.com/t/chatgpt-5-4-pro-standard-mode-adaptive-thinking-or-nerfing-model/1...
1•xiaoniu•1m ago•0 comments

Why hope is a leadership decision system (and how to build it)

https://andiroberts.com/leadership-questions/how-to-build-hope-in-your-team
1•kiyanwang•2m ago•0 comments

Gitea 1.26.0

https://blog.gitea.com/release-of-1.26.0/
1•silverwind•2m ago•0 comments

Why is everyone in America talking about this website?

1•Pyades•2m ago•0 comments

50-reward GRPO training: a 0.1 temp change collapsed the system

https://zenodo.org/records/19627242
1•HenryAvery•2m ago•0 comments

What Is AI Girlfriend

1•Answerdeveloper•5m ago•0 comments

Boring code is an organizational tell

https://simme.dev/posts/boring-code-is-an-organizational-tell/
2•gpi•7m ago•0 comments

Getting chat-tuned models to act kinda like base models

https://iter.ca/post/model-baseify/
1•smitop•7m ago•0 comments

Suspend vs. Snapshot

https://www.tensorlake.ai/blog/suspend-vs-snapshot
2•gk1•9m ago•0 comments

Demo of Ephemeral CDN – serve any temporary file instantly

https://taonexus.com/publicfiles/apr2026/ephemeraldemo.html
2•logicallee•9m ago•1 comments

Workers in global giants' India warehouses struggle for food as LPG prices soar

https://themigrationstory.com/post/we-are-facing-the-wars-consequences-workers-in-global-giants-i...
1•akbarnama•11m ago•0 comments

Building a Rim-Driven Jet Engine

https://hackaday.com/2026/04/19/building-a-rim-driven-jet-engine/
1•omer_k•11m ago•0 comments

Do you remember when Canada had its own digital music store? What happened to it

https://globalnews.ca/news/11802783/do-you-remember-canada-digital-music-store/
3•rolph•19m ago•0 comments

Monster trucks find a big audience with little kids

https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5697379
1•mooreds•19m ago•1 comments

Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/pancreatic-cancer-mrna-vaccine-shows-lasting-results-early-...
4•Anon84•20m ago•0 comments

The Wall of Shame

https://gagor.pro/2026/04/the-wall-of-shame/
1•___timor___•26m ago•0 comments

Verum, examined – a systems language for an age when humans write less code

https://verum-lang.org/blog/verum-examined
2•old8man•26m ago•3 comments

Show HN: Free PDF redactor that runs client-side

https://redactpdf.net
1•MrGuacamole•26m ago•0 comments

Presentator: Free and Open source design feedback and presentation platform

https://presentator.io/
1•thunderbong•29m ago•0 comments

Six Levels of Dark Mode

https://cssence.com/2024/six-levels-of-dark-mode/
3•Akcium•30m ago•0 comments

I Created OpenClaw – Peter Steinberger, TedTalk, YT)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rzYDM6vMtI
1•hbarka•30m ago•0 comments

A more troubling picture of sea level rise is coming into view

https://e360.yale.edu/features/sea-level-rise-land-subsidence
3•Brajeshwar•30m ago•0 comments

Europe has 'maybe six weeks of jet fuel left'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjw2kz0l22o
12•measurablefunc•33m ago•0 comments

PerryTS: Compile TypeScript to native executables with LLVM

https://www.perryts.com/
1•simjnd•37m ago•0 comments

Sagas vs. Process Managers

https://docs.eventsourcingdb.io/blog/2026/04/20/sagas-vs-process-managers/
1•goloroden•39m ago•0 comments

Epistemic Suicide: Why AI Is Collapsing into Mediocrity

https://medium.com/@erinacius4455/full-linkedin-article-english-version-6611a87d02c5
2•alex_gold•42m ago•0 comments

Cardynal – AI support agent for businesses, no code, WhatsApp and web chat

https://cardynal.io
1•Cardynal•42m ago•0 comments

Can You Hear an Ambulance Moving Faster Than Sound?

https://snoeprol.github.io/science/doppler-effect.html
1•Snoeprol•44m ago•0 comments