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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•7mo ago

Comments

copypaper•7mo 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•7mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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.

Physicist Says Consciousness Might Be Part of the Universe, Not Just the Brain

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/physicist-says-consciousness-mighgt-be-part-of-the-universe-...
1•stOneskull•1m ago•0 comments

"Courage to quit" matters more for seniors

https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/courage-to-quit-matters-more-for-seniors-less-for-juniors/
1•hiAndrewQuinn•2m ago•0 comments

Treasure hunt golden hare sold for £82k at auction

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87ld115ndvo
1•rawling•6m ago•0 comments

An Ode to Org Babel

https://donaldh.wtf/2025/11/an-ode-to-org-babel/
1•JNRowe•9m ago•0 comments

Tired of Losing Tabs? Meet Your New Tab Command Center

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mcpoafomljneoilkmelppplgljehkpbj
1•christhedev•12m ago•1 comments

Fastest AI Agent? (preview) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl6z3rjUwRY
1•eugeniox•13m ago•0 comments

The Full-Source Bootstrap: Building from source all the way down

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-building-from-source-all-the-way-down/
1•matesz•19m ago•1 comments

Show HN: RustAegis – Writing a VM-based obfuscator without using 'unsafe'

https://github.com/onurkun/RustAegis
1•kunzz•20m ago•0 comments

Petition to stop Microsoft at government in bavaria

https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/petition-gegen-die-ausstattung-bayerischer-behoerden-...
4•jlagetar•26m ago•2 comments

Web App Pre-Launch Checklist: Lessons from my own mistakes

https://catnose.me/notes/web-checklist
1•catnose•27m ago•1 comments

Five Years of Structural Deficit Broke the Silver Market

https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-argentum-inflection-how-five
2•jnord•31m ago•0 comments

Scientists may have solved why this ancient, advanced civilization vanished

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/scientists-may-have-solved-why-this-ancient-advanced-civiliz...
1•jnord•35m ago•0 comments

Nexperia crisis: Dutch chipmaker issues urgent plea to its China unit

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/28/nexperia-crisis-dutch-chipmaker-issues-urgent-plea-to-its-china-u...
1•jnord•36m ago•0 comments

ChatGPT refuses to "hand-type" spreadsheet

https://bsky.app/profile/stvmln.bsky.social/post/3m6qzladfpc2v
2•swidi•37m ago•2 comments

The Preformamce Inequality Gap in 2026

https://infrequently.org/2025/11/performance-inequality-gap-2026/
1•gherkinnn•38m ago•0 comments

Show HN: TimeTracker – Self-hosted time tracking with invoicing (120 features)

https://timetracker.drytrix.com/
3•DRYTRIX•39m ago•0 comments

Alternative Internet Protocols

https://n0thanky0u.neocities.org/alternativeprotocols/
2•Mr_Minderbinder•44m ago•0 comments

GitArsenal: Automates Repository Setup

https://www.gitarsenal.dev/cli
1•rs545837•47m ago•1 comments

There are no moral laws out there

https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/there-are-no-moral-laws-out-there
1•hn_rationality•50m ago•1 comments

1980s BASIC's Paint

https://youtu.be/f9YkL9_GfwQ
1•user____name•50m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Hh.ht – a lightweight JSON-extended scripting language

https://github.com/chunpulee/hh.ht
1•chunpulee•55m ago•0 comments

Good Engineers Write Bad Code – A Hacker News Discussion

https://medium.com/@adrianbooth/how-good-engineers-write-bad-code-a-hacker-news-discussion-e27fa9...
2•adrianbooth17•55m ago•0 comments

Solidtime: Modern open-source time-tracking app

https://github.com/solidtime-io/solidtime
1•tricked•58m ago•0 comments

I won my first game jam

https://irtaza.xyz/blog/how-i-won-my-first-game-jam/
2•Irtaza1•59m ago•0 comments

Preserving Snow Crystals

https://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/preserve/preserve.htm
1•jameslk•1h ago•0 comments

AWS inks strategic collaboration agreement with Posit, maker of RStudio/Positron

https://posit.co/blog/posit-signs-strategic-collaboration-agreement-with-aws
3•ionychal•1h ago•0 comments

Two truths of software development still valid in the age of AI

https://espen.wtf/articles/2025/11/two-truths-of-software-development-still-valid-in-the-age-of-ai/
2•ingve•1h ago•0 comments

We Brexiteers must acknowledge the costs of leaving Europe

https://www.thetimes.com/business/economics/article/we-brexiteers-must-acknowledge-the-costs-of-l...
4•mpweiher•1h ago•2 comments

Mononoke Hime FAQ's

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/faq.html
2•Eridanus2•1h ago•0 comments

WebGPU Snippets – Vercel Inspired

https://webgpusnippets.vercel.app/
1•hsnice16•1h ago•0 comments