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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.

How drones could be used to track plastic litter on Irish beaches

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2026/0424/1569594-ireland-beaches-plastic-pollution-litter-drone-fo...
1•austinallegro•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Daily China AI news briefing – engineering, product, and business

https://overnightai.substack.com/p/china-ai-news-eight-chinese-chip
1•jackyli02•3m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: I built an AI planner that adapts routines automatically – feedback?

1•Profazia•9m ago•0 comments

FDA gives the green light to the first gene therapy for deafness

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5795526/deafness-gene-therapy-regeneron
1•geox•9m ago•0 comments

Wisp – Social that's fun again

https://wisp.mobile
2•janandonly•9m ago•0 comments

Wikipedia's AI Policy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Artificial_intelligence
3•Antibabelic•13m ago•0 comments

Kremlin's tightening grip on internet fuels Russian discontent

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr510de17jlo
1•breve•15m ago•0 comments

Mathesar 0.10.0

https://docs.mathesar.org/0.10.0/releases/0.10.0/
1•klaussilveira•15m ago•0 comments

Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly

https://jeroen.github.io/notes/webassembly-tar/
3•datajeroen•16m ago•0 comments

Impactmel Is Available

https://impactmel.com
1•pndize•16m ago•0 comments

Hidden Secrets in the ArXiv: Information Disclosure in Preprint Source Files

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20927
1•bageldesert•18m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What sw do you dream about but don't have the time to code yourself?

1•curtisblaine•21m ago•1 comments

Artificial intelligence is creeping into American lawmaking

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/04/23/artificial-intelligence-is-creeping-into-ameri...
1•edward•21m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Am I getting old, or is working with AI juniors becoming a nightmare?

3•MichaelRazum•22m ago•2 comments

Ask HN: Who is using DeepSeek in production

2•h99•22m ago•0 comments

DeepSeek-V4: Making 1M token context efficient

https://firethering.com/deepseek-v4-open-source-million-token-context/
2•steveharing1•22m ago•0 comments

OpenAI has the governance structure of a unicorn – it does not exist

https://readuncut.com/open-ai-has-little-effective-governance/
1•dnsb•24m ago•0 comments

Half a Month of Consolation Writing Advice

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/half-a-month-of-consolation-writing
1•herbertl•26m ago•0 comments

How to Make Sense of AI

https://commoncog.com/how-to-make-sense-of-ai/
2•dnnddidiej•29m ago•0 comments

Seed3D 2.0

https://seed.bytedance.com/en/seed3d_2_0
1•pella•29m ago•0 comments

Why software fundamentals matter more than ever [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4F1gFy-hqg
1•zingar•31m ago•0 comments

The global edtech boom is fading as investors look elsewhere

https://restofworld.org/2026/edtech-funding-collapse-k12-startups-ai-workforce/
1•thm•31m ago•0 comments

Removal of Microplastics from Drinking Water by Moringa Oleifera Seed

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.5c11569
2•fodmap•32m ago•0 comments

AI Agent Designs a RISC-V CPU Core from Scratch

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-chip-design
2•pseudolus•36m ago•0 comments

Facts versus Understanding

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/ZimExpt/FactsVersusUnderstanding.html?zd24hn
2•ColinWright•36m ago•1 comments

US accuses China of "industrial-scale" AI theft. China says it's "slander"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/us-accuses-china-of-industrial-scale-ai-theft-china-s...
7•jnord•38m ago•0 comments

Electrostatics and High Voltage Links

http://amasci.com/static/electrostatic1.html
1•ludicrousdispla•42m ago•0 comments

Cohere and Aleph Alpha Merger

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/business/cohere-aleph-alpha-ai-merger.html
3•warthog•42m ago•0 comments

Spectro – macOS app to detect fake lossless audio files

https://www.getspectro.app
3•ddtcx•47m ago•0 comments

How Much Information Does Adding Noise Remove?

https://www.testingbranch.com/information_loss_and_noise/
2•mpcsb•56m ago•0 comments