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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.

A Universe from Three Sectors: Recovering TradeWars 2002's Map from Its RNG Seed

https://mattmichie.com/2026/07/14/a-universe-from-three-sectors/
1•influx•25s ago•0 comments

Looking for a remote internship (Fall/Winter/Spring 2026)

1•cnnadozi•52s ago•0 comments

JOBCV.IO - Free Resume Maker Online – Build Your Professional CV

https://jobcv.io/en
1•grossos•1m ago•0 comments

Cross sectioning insects in an electron microscope with a femtosecond laser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwhVJ7cv9B4
1•fallinditch•2m ago•0 comments

Casberi: Apps in one feed, no account, everything on-device

https://casberi.app
1•alexchopan•2m ago•0 comments

Manage your Claude Code agents in Raycast

https://github.com/vmc-7645/claude-fleet
1•vmc_7645•4m ago•1 comments

Laptop touchpad stopped registering clicks? try this

2•LandOfMightDev•5m ago•0 comments

Deep dive: Quad storage for optimal throughput and latency

https://blog.canoozie.net/four-integers-and-a-lot-of-wrong-assumptions/
1•jtregunna•6m ago•1 comments

OpenAI Launches Hardware for Codex

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/965901/openai-hardware-codex-micro-launch
1•thunderbong•7m ago•0 comments

Consultant Bench

https://innolitics.com/articles/consultant-benchmark/
1•innolitics•9m ago•1 comments

The lost joy of music piracy

https://www.pigeonsandplanes.com/read/music-piracy-what-cd-oink-nine-inch-nails-streaming
2•mcgin•16m ago•0 comments

How TypeScript devs can avoid getting pwned by malicious packages

https://builtbystef.com/blog/supply-chain-security/
1•builtbystef•19m ago•0 comments

Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later

https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser
1•AbuAssar•27m ago•0 comments

Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

https://www.frank.computer/blog/2025/05/just-a-tool.html
5•cratermoon•32m ago•3 comments

Business Finance Tips for Small Business Owners in the UAE and India

https://adilrashidlone.substack.com/p/business-finance-tips-for-small-business
2•digitaldaddyme•32m ago•0 comments

Panix – the oldest commercial Internet provider in New York

https://panix.com/
1•uproarchat•33m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Complete the survey and get personal free AI toothpaste recommendation

https://tpmme.me
1•notlibrary•35m ago•0 comments

Which founders created the most wealth for others?

https://wealth-creators-omega.vercel.app
2•probe•36m ago•0 comments

Don't Pee on My Leg and Call It Science

https://stager.tv/?p=4381
1•the-mitr•36m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Starter Templates in NextJS and OpenAI

https://suhasbhairav.com/ai-templates
1•bsuhas•39m ago•1 comments

WSJ: The AI Backlash Has Tech Executives Fearing for Their Lives

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/the-ai-backlash-has-tech-executives-fearing-for-their-lives-30c43972
9•testfoobar•45m ago•4 comments

AI Is Not a Tool

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/your-ai-is-not-a-tool
6•crowdhailer•46m ago•2 comments

How to make AI safe and free of America and China

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/07/15/how-to-make-ai-safe-and-free-of-america-and-china
2•andsoitis•56m ago•0 comments

Beware Change-Blocking Priors

https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/beware-change-blocking-priors
2•paulpauper•57m ago•0 comments

There is no AI in Team

https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/there-is-no-ai-in-team
3•paulpauper•57m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A Lightweight, open-source always-on-top local AI desktop companion

https://github.com/Rupak182/heychat/releases/tag/v0.1.0
2•Rupak182•1h ago•0 comments

An Interactive Map of AI

https://artifipedia.com/map
16•ceprompts•1h ago•8 comments

Crystal ML Library: Autograd, Tensors, Neural Networks, Optimizers

https://github.com/skuznetsov/cogni-ml
3•zX41ZdbW•1h ago•0 comments

My Throw Decides My Aim

https://thegustafson.com/blog/my-throw-decides-my-aim
10•usernotfoundrn•1h ago•0 comments

If you want to create a button from scratch, you must first create the universe

https://madcampos.dev/blog/2026/07/accessibility-from-scratch/
33•treve•1h ago•4 comments