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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.

Modern SID chip substitutes [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nooPmXxO6K0
1•vismit2000•42s ago•0 comments

Rocket Lab – 'Raise and Shine' Launch for JAXA [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMP328yoUu4
1•schappim•4m ago•0 comments

Deal or No Deal Game

https://jgbrwn.neocities.org/games/dond
1•indigodaddy•6m ago•1 comments

The state of enterprise AI – What we're learning about AI at work

https://openai.com/index/the-state-of-enterprise-ai-2025-report/
1•achow•7m ago•0 comments

Operation Cowboy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cowboy
1•srl•8m ago•0 comments

Intel Nears $1.6B Deal for AI Chip Startup SambaNova

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-12/intel-nears-1-6-billion-deal-for-ai-chip-start...
2•pinewurst•16m ago•1 comments

Four AI Systems Negotiate Binding Framework for Viral Content Management

https://github.com/aiconvergence-collab/multi-ai-viral-uncertainty-pact
2•mrocelot1976•29m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Scrape websites into queryable Gemini RAG knowledge bases

https://apify.com/yoloshii/gemini-file-search-builder
1•yoloshii•31m ago•0 comments

Larval stage support engineering: great at what doesn't scale

https://thundergolfer.com/startups/support/2025/12/13/support-eng-stage-1/
2•thundergolfer•44m ago•0 comments

Online Piracy Can Boost Box Office Revenue, Study Suggests

https://torrentfreak.com/online-piracy-can-boost-box-office-revenue-study-suggests/
3•gslin•52m ago•1 comments

China Makes History with $1T Trade Surplus for First Time

https://fortune.com/2025/12/08/china-1-trillion-trade-surplus-exports-rebound/
3•skx001•54m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Is There a Shell Revival?

1•sshadmand•1h ago•3 comments

LogicStamp: Turn React/TS into AI-Ready Context

https://logicstamp.dev/
2•handfuloflight•1h ago•0 comments

Color Contrast Tool Using APCA, the Candidate Contrast Method for WCAG 3

https://www.color-contrast.dev/
2•Kerrick•1h ago•0 comments

Lean Theorem Prover Mathlib

https://github.com/leanprover-community/mathlib4
2•downboots•1h ago•0 comments

Laundry Insights from Scraping 4000 Washer/Dryers in San Francisco

https://kavi.sh/san-francisco-laundry-analysis/
2•2gremlin181•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: A game engine that transpiles your scripts to Rust for native perf

https://github.com/PerroEngine/Perro
1•TiernanDeFranco•1h ago•0 comments

Using a projector instead of a computer monitor

https://blog.shenjiasi.com/20171006.html
2•plun9•1h ago•1 comments

FDA leaders propose new 'plausible mechanism' pathway for bespoke medicines

https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2025/11/fda-leaders-propose-new-‘plausible...
4•geox•1h ago•1 comments

If a Meta AI model can read a brain-wide signal, why wouldn't the brain?

https://1393.xyz/writing/if-a-meta-ai-model-can-read-a-brain-wide-signal-why-wouldnt-the-brain
2•rdgthree•1h ago•0 comments

Shooting at Brown U Barus and Holley building houses engineering and physics

https://rhodeislandcurrent.com/2025/12/13/the-unthinkable-has-happened-2-killed-eight-injured-in-...
4•redwood•1h ago•0 comments

Honing rods analyzed with an electron microscope – Scienceofsharp (2018)

https://scienceofsharp.com/2018/08/22/what-does-steeling-do-part-1/
1•shrinks99•1h ago•0 comments

How to Extend Phone Battery Life: 10 Proven Hacks

https://www.dailytechhacks.com/hacks/extend-phone-battery-life.html
1•rk3000•1h ago•3 comments

Show HN: Libefaxx – A Microbenchmark for AWS EFA GPU/CPU RDMA Communication

https://github.com/crazyguitar/Libefaxx
2•crazyguitar•1h ago•0 comments

Therapeutic Use of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2842072?guestAccessKey=a368e622-e374-4a0c-8d3b-...
3•bookofjoe•1h ago•0 comments

Free Software Awards Winners Announced: Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, Govdirectory

https://www.fsf.org/news/2024-free-software-awards-winners
15•pseudolus•1h ago•0 comments

NeuralOperator Joins the PyTorch Ecosystem

https://pytorch.org/blog/neuraloperatorjoins-the-pytorch-ecosystem/
2•williamjsdavis•2h ago•0 comments

States lodge lawsuit against Trump's $100k H-1B visa fee

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/12/trump-visa-fee-lawsuit-00689510
5•sul_tasto•2h ago•0 comments

Evaluating Gemini Robotics Policies in a Veo World Simulator

https://veo-robotics.github.io/
1•thomasm6m6•2h ago•0 comments

Quantum Computing Could Put IBM Back on Top Again

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ibm-stock-quantum-computing-system-two-a6c615de
3•Bostonian•2h ago•2 comments