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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.

Agentic Code Optimization via Compiler-LLM Cooperation

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.04238
1•matt_d•1m ago•0 comments

Tend: Lightweight attention infrastructure for humans and AI agents

https://www.tend.cx/
2•possumously•3m ago•2 comments

Microsoft's PhotoDNA technology keeps flagging my face picture

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/microsoft-photodna-scanning-problem-it-is-comical-now.45961/
3•darkzek•18m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Looking for AI Video Upscaler

1•120bits•20m ago•0 comments

Yuku – A fast, spec-compliant JavaScript parser written in Zig

1•arshadyaseen•21m ago•0 comments

Should academic misconduct be catalogued? Proposed US database sparks debate

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01147-x
1•gnabgib•30m ago•0 comments

One Method Was Using 71% of CPU. Here's the Flame Graph

https://jvogel.me/posts/2026/one-method-using-71-percent-of-cpu/
1•siegers•34m ago•1 comments

Apple's New iPhone Update Is Restricting Internet Freedom in the UK

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/blog/apples-new-iphone-update-is-restricting-internet-freedom-in-t...
3•josephcsible•36m ago•0 comments

Volcanic rock formula cuts cement emissions by two-thirds

https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-volcanic-formula-cement-emissions-thirds.html
1•geox•43m ago•0 comments

The Mystery of Water on the Moon

https://nautil.us/the-mystery-of-water-on-the-moon-1279617
1•Bender•48m ago•0 comments

YouTube Premium just went up to $15.99 / mo (US)

https://www.youtube.com/premium
6•tehwebguy•49m ago•1 comments

Chatbots are great at manipulating people to buy stuff, Princeton boffins find

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/09/chatbots_excel_at_manipulating_people/
1•Bender•50m ago•0 comments

Make2c - Revolutionary Discovery of the Music Math Formula

https://github.com/sfeltenberg/Analytic-lobe-hypothesis/blob/main/README.md
2•sfeltenberg•50m ago•1 comments

EdgeSense – replacing neural nets on microcontrollers with symbolic physics

https://github.com/Kretski/EdgeSense
3•DREDREG•50m ago•0 comments

Mexican surveillance company Grupo Seguritech watches the U.S. border

https://restofworld.org/2026/mexico-seguritech-government-surveillance-profile/
1•classichasclass•51m ago•0 comments

Ludwig Straub, Winner of the John Bates Clark Medal

https://nicholasdecker.substack.com/p/ludwig-straub-winner-of-the-john
2•paulpauper•51m ago•0 comments

AI #163: Mythos Quest

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-163-mythos-quest
2•paulpauper•51m ago•0 comments

The Anti-Democratization of Software

https://bitcicle.com/post/2026/anti-democratizing_software/
2•abelleisle•53m ago•0 comments

Warren Weaver and New Science Instruments

https://republicofscience.substack.com/p/warren-weaver-and-new-science-instruments
1•paulpauper•54m ago•0 comments

5 LLM played Poker: Opus busted first, Grok won

https://github.com/sagaripte/chorus/tree/main/examples/poker
6•sagari•55m ago•0 comments

Police corporal created AI porn from driver's license pics

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/state-police-corporal-created-porn-deepfakes-from-dri...
1•Bender•58m ago•0 comments

Mystery over 8 missing or dead scientific experts

https://www.newsweek.com/mystery-over-8-missing-or-dead-experts-linked-to-ufo-research-11792852
2•ZunarJ5•1h ago•0 comments

What Playboy got right about men – Lust and literacy can coexist

https://unherd.com/2026/04/what-playboy-got-right-about-men/
5•pseudolus•1h ago•2 comments

I built a portfolio platform for creators (FelixPro.space)

https://www.felixpro.space
2•asabajumah•1h ago•0 comments

Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-technical-coding
15•cebert•1h ago•8 comments

The Economics of Software Teams: Why Most Organizations Are Flying Blind

https://www.viktorcessan.com/the-economics-of-software-teams/
1•gpi•1h ago•0 comments

Vibe-Coded Ext4 for OpenBSD

https://lwn.net/Articles/1064541/
3•signa11•1h ago•1 comments

The role of LLMs in patch review

https://lwn.net/Articles/1064830/
3•signa11•1h ago•0 comments

Stream your terminal. Watch AI agents work. Like Twitch, for shells

https://github.com/sderosiaux/twitch-terminal
2•chtefi•1h ago•0 comments

The many failures leading to the LiteLLM compromise

https://lwn.net/Articles/1064693/
3•signa11•1h ago•1 comments