frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

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.

AI trolley users rack up higher basket values and spend longer in store

https://www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2026/june/smart-supermarket-trolleys-linked-...
1•geox•3m ago•0 comments

In-memory security gate for autonomous AI agent tools

https://bartholomew.info
1•itsub_sa•3m ago•0 comments

One job ad, 1000 applicants: How do you stand out in a world of AI job hunters?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/personal-finance/1215988/one-job-ad-1000-applicants-how-do-you-stand-o...
4•billybuckwheat•3m ago•0 comments

Long-term melatonin use linked to 90% higher heart failure risk

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829035228.htm
1•elo2000•4m ago•0 comments

A Simple Guide to Five Normal Forms in Relational Database Theory (1982)

https://www.bkent.net/Doc/simple5.htm
2•dargscisyhp•8m ago•0 comments

Squeak 6.1 Release Party UKSTUG, Sep 2nd 18:00 UTC

https://www.meetup.com/ukstug/events/316112369/
1•LinqLover•10m ago•0 comments

Bugs happen: The easy way to compare solo PQ to ECC+PQ

https://blog.cr.yp.to/20260704-bugs.html
1•zdw•12m ago•0 comments

Racial Views of Winston Churchill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill
2•vinni2•13m ago•0 comments

The AI That Won't Say Who Made It (Unmasking Ox Alpha) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLTNVM1mhiU
1•emk_709•13m ago•0 comments

Why CephFS commits writes faster than Ceph RBD on the same cluster

https://zozoo.io/aether-shared-filesystem-faster-than-block-storage/
1•zozotk•14m ago•0 comments

Apple Maps Renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America'

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/09/01/apple-maps-lake-america/
3•spdustin•17m ago•3 comments

SKILL.state: Scalable Long-Horizon Agent Skills

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.26263
1•Hoefner•18m ago•0 comments

Fun weekend project – brand distribution game

https://keepitlive.lol
1•seif-dx•20m ago•1 comments

Fluorescent lamps (don't) have ears

https://blog.coredump.cx/p/fluorescent-lamps-dont-have-ears
2•zdw•20m ago•0 comments

OpenAI to Restrict Astra Model After Rating It 'Critical' Cyber Risk

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-to-restrict-astra-model-after-rating-it-critical-cyber-risk-49...
2•bmau5•21m ago•3 comments

Why your agent is better than mine

https://yakko.dev/blog/best-harness-is-your-own-harness
2•yakkomajuri•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fountain – OSS API to give your app a computer it can talk to

https://managoat.com/oss-launch
1•jhgaylor•23m ago•0 comments

failfs

https://docs.kernel.org/filesystems/failfs.html
3•manbash•23m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Compilr.dev Studio – A project brain AI agents write to and people read

https://studio.compilr.dev/welcome/
1•scozzola•24m ago•1 comments

Small Is Beautiful

https://blog.dshr.org/2026/09/small-is-beautiful.html
2•zdw•25m ago•0 comments

Surfmen of the U.S. Life-Saving Service

https://www.nps.gov/calo/learn/historyculture/surfmen.htm
2•Bluestein•26m ago•0 comments

Meta's $17B Settlement Is a Bad Deal for Teens and All Social Media Users

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/metas-17-billion-settlement-bad-deal-teens-and-all-social-m...
3•panarky•28m ago•1 comments

Modernist Tiles with CSS Grid

https://www.carmenansio.com/articles/modernist-tiles-css-grid/
2•eustoria•29m ago•0 comments

I've Been Reading

https://antonyfb.com/blog/reading-straw-world.html
1•jruohonen•31m ago•0 comments

JavaScript / ECMAScript Internationalization (I18n)

https://www.jsi18n.com/
1•eustoria•32m ago•0 comments

Making my blog feel like other people are here

https://keith.is/post/playhtml-shared-header/
1•eustoria•32m ago•0 comments

Claude Fable 5.1 results on ARC-AGI

https://arcprize.org/results/anthropic-claude-fable-5-1
3•matt1•34m ago•3 comments

Aurem – ships real commits to your website from plain English, no coder needed

https://auremcto.com/
2•tjsandhu•34m ago•0 comments

A docs page is a long and complex search query to find AI agents

https://blog.val.town/aeo
3•stevekrouse•35m ago•0 comments

Pgwatch v6: dashboards reimagined, and a reaper that doesn't choke

https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/pgwatch-v6-dashboards-reimagined-and-a-reaper-that-doesnt-...
1•blueshoess•36m ago•0 comments