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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.

What's New in Flutter 3.41

https://blog.flutter.dev/whats-new-in-flutter-3-41-302ec140e632
1•doctaj•48s ago•0 comments

Add Spaces to the Dock on macOS

https://practicalbetterments.com/add-spaces-to-the-dock-on-mac-os/
1•DitheringIdiot•3m ago•1 comments

Show HN: An Interactive Text to SQL Agent Benchmark

https://sql-benchmark.nicklothian.com/
1•nl•5m ago•0 comments

A Nursing Home Owner Got a Pardon. The Families of His Patients Got Nothing

https://www.propublica.org/article/joseph-schwartz-trump-pardon-skyline-nursing-home-patients
1•Jimmc414•7m ago•0 comments

Ubuntu 26.04 Showing Nice Gains over Ubuntu 25.10 on AMD Ryzen 9000 Series

https://www.phoronix.com/review/ubuntu-2510-2604-zen5
1•teleforce•7m ago•0 comments

Pi: Another AI agent toolkit, but this one is interesting

https://github.com/badlogic/pi-mono
1•modinfo•8m ago•0 comments

There may be 10 times as many citizen scientists in Australia as we thought

https://theconversation.com/there-may-be-10-times-as-many-citizen-scientists-in-australia-as-we-t...
2•defrost•9m ago•0 comments

Polymarket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymarket
1•DyslexicAtheist•13m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Does anyone else notice that gas runs out faster than usual

1•cat-turner•13m ago•0 comments

The Texas Lawyer and Part-Time Pastor Who Beat Meta and Google

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-texas-lawyer-and-part-time-pastor-who-beat-meta-and-google-82...
1•tolerance•19m ago•0 comments

ASML plans 1,700 job cuts as it restructures teams

https://www.techinasia.com/news/asml-plans-1700-job-cuts-as-it-restructures-teams
1•markus_zhang•20m ago•0 comments

The Blackwall Between Your AI Agent and Your Filesystem

https://www.wshoffner.dev/blog/greywall
1•ticktockbent•21m ago•0 comments

Boltcli – Bolt Food orders from the terminal (reverse-engineered API)

https://github.com/Lukynnnn/boltcli
1•Lukynnnn•24m ago•0 comments

PostMac – AI-native development, trunk-based Git, 12-factor philosophy

https://github.com/tdsanchez/PostMac
1•tdsanchez•26m ago•1 comments

Bob Dylan's AI "Lectures from the Grave" Review: An Accidental Warning

https://consequence.net/2026/03/bob-dylan-ai-lectures-from-the-grave-review/
1•coloneltcb•31m ago•0 comments

Error messages are an underrated part of agent experience

https://www.knut.fyi/blog/2026-03-30/agentic-developer-experience-starts-with-your-system
2•jeffinpdx•32m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Anyone getting random quotes from U-Haul while their website is down?

1•phyzix5761•32m ago•0 comments

iOS 26.4 Autocorrect Updates

https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-iphone-autocorrect-update-7659d618
2•daviesgeek•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: HackerOne Silent-Patched My Critical BOLA and Banned Me

https://github.com/guardiankali/HackerOne-Silent-Patch-Exposed/blob/main/Critical.README.md
2•Salamalto•35m ago•0 comments

The Nginx default page hides 5 clues that lead to same 24-word BIP39 mnemonic

https://bip39-recast.pages.dev/wwwroot/
2•imcotton•37m ago•0 comments

Anarchist Calisthenics

https://harpers.org/archive/2012/12/anarchist-calisthenics/
2•theopsimist•39m ago•0 comments

They Believed They Found $500M in Civil War Gold. Then the FBI Swooped In(2025)

https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/a69762000/treasure-hunters-find-gold-fbi/
2•Jimmc414•40m ago•0 comments

Sedan (Nuclear Test)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_(nuclear_test)
2•JumpCrisscross•40m ago•0 comments

California Counties and Cities Comparison

https://trekhleb.dev/cali-vibe/
2•okso_app•42m ago•0 comments

Books and Screens

https://aeon.co/essays/what-we-think-is-a-decline-in-literacy-is-a-design-problem
3•bookofjoe•43m ago•0 comments

PocketMage PDA CrowdSupply

https://www.crowdsupply.com/talisman-design/pocketmage
2•caminanteblanco•44m ago•0 comments

StarRocks Is Not Enterprise Ready

https://dataengineeringguide.substack.com/p/starrocks-celerdata-not-enterprise-ready-2026
3•amandagerdes•45m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Codemaxxing – Maximize your slop abilities

https://github.com/jshchnz/codemaxxing
4•jshchnz•46m ago•0 comments

Long-Context Isn't the Answer

https://www.humanlayer.dev/blog/long-context-isnt-the-answer
2•arbayi•51m ago•0 comments

Wisp: WebAssembly Lisp

https://github.com/DavidLiedle/WISP
3•DavidCanHelp•51m ago•0 comments