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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•1y ago

Comments

copypaper•1y 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•1y ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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.

Laid-Off Developers Create AI Model to Replace CEOs and Other Executives

https://uk.pcmag.com/ai/167048/laid-off-developers-create-ai-model-to-replace-ceos-and-other-exec...
2•taubek•2m ago•0 comments

BSX market stats now with Nostr relay and skynet

https://markets.basicswapdex.com
1•dRK-U•2m ago•0 comments

YC founders, I see you

https://skop.finitynetwork.com/p/18916c3c-f6ae-4902-ba1c-7cbceb31ed31
1•tosh•3m ago•0 comments

I Made a Non-Wi-Fi Mitsubishi AC Smart with an ESP32

https://medium.com/@ivangomezarnedo/how-i-added-a-non-wi-fi-mitsubishi-ac-to-home-assistant-22770...
1•ichacas•5m ago•0 comments

0x024 – X402

https://unzip.dev/0x024-x402/
1•vismit2000•8m ago•0 comments

The Human Is Becoming Latency

https://www.gonzocapital.net/the-human-is-becoming-latency/
1•gonzocapital•11m ago•0 comments

Zynthoro

https://zynthoro.ai/
1•Zynthoro•12m ago•0 comments

My Interesting Conversation with Jared Diamond

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/my-very-interesting-conversation-with-j...
1•smitty1e•13m ago•0 comments

How to Sequence Fundamental Biophysics

https://blog.escalante.bio/how-to-sequence-fundamental-biophysics/
1•magni121•18m ago•0 comments

Deobfuscation in the Age of Agentic Reverse Engineering [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-gJ6EUFoKM
2•nicolodev•21m ago•0 comments

Monitor AI visibility with n8n in five nodes

https://heeb.ai/blog/monitor-ai-visibility-with-n8n
1•cabrian•22m ago•0 comments

Hepburn Romanization: How to Read Japanese in the Latin Alphabet

https://www.fink-translate.com/blog/hepburn-romanization.html
1•miuraboy•24m ago•0 comments

Finding Slow Code with Wrapture

https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/09/finding-slow-code-with-wrapture/
2•lumpa•25m ago•0 comments

Instagram CEO warns against turning off algorithm

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/instagram-ceo-adam-mosseri-algorithm-laws/107136992
3•Raouel•26m ago•1 comments

Reducing cost and improving performance with Claude Platform

https://claude.com/blog/reducing-cost-and-improving-performance-with-claude-platform
1•lumpa•28m ago•0 comments

Agentic Automation: Skills and MCP That Evolve with Our Product

https://medusajs.com/blog/agentic-automation-skills-and-mcp-that-evolve-with-our-product
1•shahednasser•30m ago•0 comments

Analysis of 88,975 HN Who Is Hiring Job Posts

https://mljar.com/blog/remote-python-data-job-hacker-news/
1•pplonski86•30m ago•0 comments

Iran likely to reverse-engineer captured US underwater drone

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-likely-reverse-engineer-captured-us-underwater-dro...
2•geox•31m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Stroq – a firewall that knows why your AI agent ran that command

https://github.com/AGGIB/Stroq
1•Agybay•32m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Starkomand – Mission Control for Your Agents. One Canvas

https://starkomand.com/
2•thedevtimeline•33m ago•0 comments

What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260909-00/?p=112683
2•soheilpro•33m ago•0 comments

An alignment assessment of recent cybersecurity incidents

https://www.anthropic.com/research/alignment-assessment-cybersecurity-incidents
1•lumpa•33m ago•0 comments

Shot Ease – Capture, Annotate and Share Screenshots in One Flow

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/shot-ease-screen-capture/cejbjpbkachlmgbphckaikicmnpmfjdn
1•lucakk•34m ago•0 comments

Home Hardware, Part 2: Width Matters

https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/home-hardware-part-two/
1•tosh•35m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Autark – a self bootstrapping build system

https://autark.dev/
1•adamansky•36m ago•0 comments

Crazy Cursor – Magical Particle Mouse Effects for Chrome

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/crazy-cursor-magical-part/eejfljdgkaanachdckmpmfgjhncihfmd
1•lucakk•36m ago•0 comments

AI-Translation-Stack

https://github.com/antonihabek/AI-translation-stack
1•antonihabek•36m ago•0 comments

Some remarks on being stuck, with digressions on David Hockney

https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/creative-block
2•jger15•40m ago•0 comments

Are credit rating agencies getting fed up with hyperscalers?

https://www.ft.com/content/623c286b-c973-4488-83f3-97e9016e85f6
1•Betelbuddy•44m ago•0 comments

"When I Created Raspbian for the Raspberry Pi..."

https://twitter.com/OfMikeAndMen/status/2097894902201790904
3•notRobot•47m ago•0 comments