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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 hacker's guide to bending the universe (2016)

https://aresluna.org/a-hackers-guide-to-bending-the-universe/
1•colinprince•40s ago•0 comments

Wiki Time Machine

https://timemachine.carbonadoks.com
1•kinduff•1m ago•0 comments

SovereignLab, a Public-Source Intel Digest

https://github.com/paulpdelancy-spec/SovereignLab-Intake-Registry-Public/blob/main/README.md
1•Pcumberbatch•2m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Why does Astra compact context so frequently vs. Fable?

1•yesitcan•2m ago•0 comments

Pages with the Most Revisions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MostRevisions
1•imwally•7m ago•0 comments

Language Models That Play Chess (2700 Elo) and Explain Their Moves

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.03695
1•buzzy_hacker•22m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What do you think about AI generated slides for conferences?

2•Hixon10•24m ago•1 comments

Oracle Head of Data Centres Latam Interview with Entelligencia

https://entelligencia.report/weekly/03/
1•entelligencia7•24m ago•0 comments

Export Mac OLM to PST

https://www.perfectdatasolutions.com/en/olm/olm-to-pst-converter.html
1•tieanderson•25m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Figxit, IDE-style autocomplete for the macOS terminal

https://github.com/en3sis/figxit
2•en3sis•27m ago•0 comments

Intelligent MFA: Stop Challenging Logins That Don't Deserve It

https://fusionauth.io/blog/intelligent-mfa-stop-challenging-logins
1•mooreds•29m ago•0 comments

Alleged NATO spy case brings 'some serious lessons' for Canada, says minister

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-spy-arrest-belgium-9.7369427
1•snarky-comments•35m ago•0 comments

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https://lopebase.com/
1•ghosts_•35m ago•0 comments

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https://jamespember.substack.com/p/saas-buyer-seller-alignment
1•jep888•37m ago•1 comments

Sightline – Real-time collaborative CV dataset verification using CRDTs

https://sightline-crdt.netlify.app
1•joshuageoschool•38m ago•0 comments

Malicious Crypto Shell Packages Target RubyGems

https://opensourcemalware.com/blog/malicious-crypto-shell
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https://github.com/moching-ai-dev/moching
3•moching_ai_dev•40m ago•1 comments

Pseudo-Relevances with Jev

https://iwhalen.com/jev-pseudo-relevance/
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Show HN: Hand your agent's browser clicks to TypeSafe's Jev via an MCP proxy

https://github.com/coderexpert123/jev-browser-wingman
1•hrishi1990•43m ago•0 comments

Quad9 Rejects French Piracy Blocks, Weighs Exit as BeIN Seeks Up to €580K a Day

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1•Cider9986•46m ago•0 comments

The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for 40 Dollars (2018)

https://mchap.io/that-time-the-city-of-seattle-accidentally-gave-me-32m-emails-for-40-dollars4997...
1•corvad•47m ago•0 comments

Apple may soon track when Google promotes Chrome inside Safari

https://9to5mac.com/2026/10/05/apple-may-soon-track-when-google-promotes-chrome-inside-safari/
4•tech234a•48m ago•3 comments

Use GNU Emacs the Plain Text Computing Environment

https://www2.lib.uchicago.edu/keith/emacs/
1•dargscisyhp•49m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Agents: Zero to Hero – Learn AI Agents from Scratch in Pure Python

https://github.com/tradertanmay/ai-agents-zero-to-hero
1•tradertanmay•51m ago•1 comments

Serving my blog via a govt.nz domain

https://utf9k.net/blog/government-proxied-blog/
2•OuterVale•52m ago•0 comments

Mind control of smart devices enabled by space-time-coding metasurface

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63326-0
2•bookofjoe•1h ago•0 comments

British Army Brings Cavalry Back – Like with Horses

https://united24media.com/world/british-army-brings-cavalry-back-this-time-for-modern-battlefield...
1•Gaishan•1h ago•1 comments

A Man Behind the Soups (1989)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1989/01/23/albert-yeganeh-the-real-soup-nazi
2•thunderbong•1h ago•2 comments

Install script does rm -rf /usr (2011)

https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee-Old-and-abbandoned/issues/123
3•colinprince•1h ago•0 comments

The computer will turn society upside down – Krishnamurti [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqv4-eoxbIA
1•remir•1h ago•1 comments