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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.

Brazos: Liquid cooling system to air-cooled data centers

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/systems/brazos-liquid-cooling-system-for-air-cooled-data-cen...
1•ilreb•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Shivvr – Ephemeral semantic embedding and cognitive agent service

https://shivvr.nuts.services/
1•kordlessagain•1m ago•0 comments

SpaceX Set to Overtake Amazon in Value as It Soars for Third Day

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/spacex-spcx-stock-set-for-more-than-50-jump-in...
1•pera•1m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: Anthropic walks back on Agent SDK credit changes

1•lostmsu•2m ago•0 comments

Commodore announces Linux-based flip phone with 'no social media, no browser'

https://www.tomshardware.com/phones/commodore-announces-linux-based-flip-phone-with-no-social-med...
1•neilfrndes•2m ago•0 comments

CRA Compliance Kit – Open-Source Toolkit for the EU Cyber Resilience Act

https://cra-watch.starcaller-teq.workers.dev/dashboard
1•sparka•2m ago•0 comments

Canadian Government Plans to Shut Down Debate and Pass Bill C-22 This Week

https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2026/06/government-moves-to-shut-down-lawful-access-hearing-in-order-...
2•EmbarrassedHelp•3m ago•1 comments

DOJ claims xAI's unpermitted gas turbines are a matter of national security

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/16/doj-claims-xais-unpermitted-gas-turbines-are-a-matter-of-nation...
3•landonxjames•3m ago•0 comments

SearchGate – An AI Content Blocker

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/searchgate/cholhbhkhcnekbbobehnepiifckhbmkd
1•sorethescore•3m ago•0 comments

FT Alphaville's AI Prediction World Cup

https://www.ft.com/content/ce992051-05f4-40cd-a515-1ccd615f9e40
1•aanet•4m ago•1 comments

Email should have been a meeting

https://justinjackson.ca/communication
1•duvander•5m ago•0 comments

Zitchain: Bitcoin has structural flaws. I designed an alternative

https://zitchain.com
1•tiagofsilva•5m ago•0 comments

SpaceX tops Amazon and Microsoft in market value

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/spacex-tops-amazon-microsoft-value-rcna350254
2•geox•6m ago•0 comments

The Era of AI Malaise

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/21/1135921/ai-malaise-artificial-intelligence-public-sen...
1•karakoram•6m ago•1 comments

Titan's Hidden Blanket

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/titans-hidden-blanket
1•bookofjoe•7m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Claireon – MCP Server for Unreal Editor

https://github.com/believer-oss/claireon
2•karl_gluck•8m ago•0 comments

Why AI Will Accelerate Health Care Inflation

https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/why-ai-accelerate-health-care-inflation
3•brandonb•9m ago•0 comments

Connecting to a Lot of People on LinkedIn via Browser DevTools

https://justinribeiro.com/chronicle/2026/06/11/connecting-to-a-lot-of-people-on-linkedin-via-brow...
1•speckx•9m ago•0 comments

'David Bowie was a crazy workaholic': Labyrinth at 40 – an oral history

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/16/david-bowie-workaholic-labyrinth-at-40-oral-history
1•tosh•9m ago•0 comments

Anthropogenic Geomaterials – What Is This Rock?

https://aeon.co/essays/the-strange-rocks-that-wouldnt-exist-without-us
2•karakoram•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: INT21 – Self-Improving PTX Kernel Factory

https://int21.ai/insights/introducing-int21-and-ptx-kernel-factory/
1•antinucleon•10m ago•0 comments

Copper drug restores memory and clears toxic Alzheimer's proteins

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschemneuro.6c00252
1•Noaidi•11m ago•1 comments

Chainguard's new Athena coalition uses AI to fix open-source flaws

https://www.zdnet.com/article/chainguard-athena-coalition-fixes-open-source-flaws-before-ai-attac...
2•amouat•11m ago•0 comments

Publishers to bill AI firms for unwanted scraping or take them to court

https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/publishers-to-bill-ai-firms-for-unwanted-scraping-and-take-them-t...
2•thm•12m ago•0 comments

Google Earth Flight Simulator Is Now Available

https://twitter.com/googleearth/status/2065449043925381293
1•kordlessagain•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: NIS2 Readiness Check

https://dmarcguard.io/tools/nis2-readiness/
1•meysamazad•13m ago•0 comments

Trump officials won't allow G7 countries to access Anthropic's advanced models

https://nypost.com/2026/06/16/business/trump-admin-open-to-talks-with-anthropic-over-foreigner-ban/
3•thm•14m ago•0 comments

Building a Soviet Nail Factory: how KPIs killed efficiency

https://vincent.bernat.ch/en/blog/2026-kpi-goodhart
1•vbernat•14m ago•0 comments

Cell-Based Architecture for Resilient Payment Systems

https://americanexpress.io/cell-based-architecture-for-resilient-payment-systems/
1•steveklabnik•16m ago•0 comments

The agent is a file. Define it once, call it from anywhere

https://coresource.ai/blog/2026-06-15-the-agent-is-a-file
2•lucadini•16m ago•0 comments