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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.

Speculative Programmatic Tool Calling

https://alexzhang13.github.io/blog/2026/spec-ptc/
1•gmays•20s ago•0 comments

Over 60k arrested for communication offences as trivial as viewing TikTok videos

https://www.gbnews.com/news/free-speech-row-more-than-60000-arrested-communications-offences
1•josephcsible•2m ago•0 comments

Americans are vibe-coding trading algorithms

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ai-shift-turning-everyday-investors-into-mini-quant-funds-ebe4d45f
2•simonpure•2m ago•0 comments

A cross-chain DEX for atomic swaps, without middleman

https://basicswapdex.com/
2•dRK-U•3m ago•0 comments

Nutrient-supplemented carbonized aerogels for oil adsorption and biodegradation

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666821126003583
1•wslh•7m ago•0 comments

Ryoku – A hand-built Omarchy alternative

https://ryoku.dev/
2•hkalbasi•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Kadō – open-source habit tracker, with non-binary habit score, for iOS

https://github.com/scastiel/kado
3•scastiel•10m ago•0 comments

A/I shuts down – Stay human

https://keepitfree.ai/announcements/a/i-shuts-down-stay-human/
3•captainmuon•10m ago•0 comments

From Microservices to Microcells

https://zozo123.github.io/microservices-to-microcells/
1•zozo123-IB-IL2•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Truffle – Ask questions about your codebase in plain English, in Slack

https://asktruffle.com/
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https://github.com/franciscocarloserra/llm-sandbox/
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https://www.wired.com/story/cyborg-cockroaches-disaster-response/
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She lost her sight. Her billionaire father bet on a daring new treatment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/09/06/she-lost-her-sight-her-billionaire-father-be...
1•pseudolus•18m ago•1 comments

Design Patterns

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns
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GPT-6 Astra soundly defeats Fable 5.1 on recognizing handwritten corrections

https://dorrit.pairsys.ai/
3•svcrunch•21m ago•1 comments

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend

https://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.1.3.html
3•Eridanus2•21m ago•0 comments

From Shahed to Geran: How Russia Continues to Reinvent the One-Way Attack Drone

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1•atlasunshrugged•21m ago•0 comments

I track LLM API prices daily, found a 33x cost gap in the same model

1•costpertoken•21m ago•0 comments

Token Tap: extract design tokens from any webpage

https://tokenflow.gumroad.com/l/nkyrao
1•chrarmst•25m ago•0 comments

Freelance writer (memoirs, fantasy, and speculative fiction)

https://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/comments/1w8xeeg/for_hire_creative_ghostwriter_emotionally_complex/
1•ElysiumAbove•26m ago•0 comments

Industrial-Strength Natural Language Processing

https://spacy.io/
2•Bluestein•26m ago•0 comments

Majority Russian-speaking city in Ukraine considers language ban in the arts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c33kzvgn8pyo
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Show HN: Automatically Save 60% on Amazon

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/findcheap/fpghkhnkfjlenapcdahgaafenfaopidn
1•givesushi•34m ago•0 comments

How Williamsburg Lost Its Swag (2026)

https://slate.com/business/2026/09/williamsburg-brooklyn-tech-bros-gentrification.html
1•mistyvales•34m ago•0 comments

New York City pausing some AI tools in schools

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/why-is-new-york-city-pausing-some-ai-tools-in-schools...
2•noobplus•35m ago•1 comments

Turn Golang packages into typed JavaScript packages with WebAssembly

https://github.com/paulgrammer/gowasm
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The Craft of Software Scoping

https://www.akashtandon.in/technology/2026-09-06-the-craft-of-software-scoping/
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Asahi Linux Now Officially Supports Apple M3 Macs – With Caveats

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Asahi-Linux-Official-M3
22•mdp2021•36m ago•1 comments

Terence Tao on "Solving Maths Problems Prematurely with AI Methods

https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117207856734787448
2•birdculture•38m ago•0 comments