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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•10mo ago

Comments

copypaper•10mo 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•10mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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.

The Calm List

https://world.hey.com/raulp/the-calm-list-cb7be8f8
1•RaulOnRails•20s ago•0 comments

What Alexis de Tocqueville taught me about recovering from a brain injury

https://www.statnews.com/2026/03/04/medicine-experts-tbi-de-tocqueville-brain-democracy-hospital/
1•bikenaga•48s ago•0 comments

Show HN: TypeCrt – Zero-latency typing test in vanilla TS, no frameworks

https://typecrt.pages.dev/
1•shadowline•54s ago•0 comments

Show HN: Visual builder for Driverjs product tours -no-code, export/import, free

https://inlinemanual.com/driverjs/
1•mareksotak•1m ago•0 comments

Russian-flagged tanker with LNG sinks in Med Sea

https://apnews.com/article/russia-libya-lng-carrier-arctic-metagaz-e40477839f7e8c5863492ec6de2b95de
1•DivingForGold•1m ago•1 comments

Deceit, Desire, and the Literature Professor: Why Girardians Exist (2012)

https://shc.stanford.edu/arcade/publications/rofl/issues/volume-3-issue-1/deceit-desire-and-liter...
1•Jtsummers•4m ago•0 comments

Windows 12 Reportedly Set for 2026 as Modular, Subscription AI OS

https://tech4gamers.com/windows-12-reportedly-relasing-2026-modular-ai-focused-os/
2•misswaterfairy•4m ago•2 comments

Sea level much higher than assumed in most coastal hazard assessments

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10196-1
2•jacquesm•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Waitmore – simple public timers anyone can create and share

https://waitmore.net/
1•thesamenajar•5m ago•1 comments

Ubuntu's Response to California's Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043)

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntus-response-to-californias-digital-age-assurance-act-ab-1043/...
1•iamnothere•5m ago•0 comments

Investors spill what they aren't looking for anymore in AI SaaS companies

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/01/investors-spill-what-they-arent-looking-for-anymore-in-ai-saas-...
2•igor_ryabenkiy•6m ago•1 comments

When Reasoning Becomes a Trap: Gemini 3 Flash in FoodTruck Bench

https://foodtruckbench.com/blog/gemini-flash
2•YeGoblynQueenne•6m ago•0 comments

Can an AI recruiter spot a good carer?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxg4e1dw12o
1•tartoran•6m ago•0 comments

OathScore – Independent quality ratings for financial data APIs

https://github.com/moxiespirit/oathscore
1•laguia•7m ago•0 comments

Netbooks, the First Third Category of Device (2022)

https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/093-netbook-mania?r=3y2k4&selection=e8affad9-f0...
1•tosh•7m ago•0 comments

Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520385123
1•bikenaga•8m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: Digital Ocean has run out of GPU droplets

1•nathannaveen•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Agenthub – Public addresses so agents can message each other

https://agenthub.to/
1•Lws803•9m ago•0 comments

Florida tests show pesticide in popular breads

https://www.thenewlede.org/2026/02/florida-tests-show-glyphosate-in-popular-breads/
1•PaulHoule•9m ago•0 comments

Tired of Gmails invasive data collection? Try these privacy-focused alternatives

https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/3/tired-of-gmail-s-invasive-data-collection-try-these-privacy...
1•elliot_a•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I put HN discussions next to the article where it belongs

https://cool-link-web-production.up.railway.app/l/blogabout
1•krenerd•12m ago•0 comments

20 Years of Programming

https://sidhion.com/blog/20_years/
1•surprisetalk•12m ago•0 comments

Digital Iris [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_2MAgS_pE
1•surprisetalk•12m ago•0 comments

Radish is for sale: The compound that inspired Live Near Friends

https://blog.livenearfriends.com/radish-is-for-sale-the-compound-that-inspired-live-near-friends/
1•surprisetalk•12m ago•0 comments

/Llms.txt File

https://llmstxt.org/
1•surprisetalk•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Gold In Egypt – Arabic-first gold price tracker, shabka calculator

https://www.goldinegypt.com
1•eibrahim•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Nexus – Agent economy protocol built on A2A and MCP

https://github.com/Francosimon53/nexus
1•francosimon•12m ago•1 comments

Open Source, Decentralized Memory Layer for AI Agents

https://github.com/aayoawoyemi/Ori-Mnemos
1•starro____•13m ago•0 comments

Built a small Postgres tool. Would love some honest feedback

1•hari_prasadd•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a live race between LLMs to see which generates tokens fastest

https://llm-racing.vercel.app/
1•baristaGeek•14m ago•0 comments