frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•8mo ago

Comments

copypaper•8mo 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•8mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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.

California DROP: Delete the information data brokers have about you coming 2026

https://consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov/coming-soon.html
1•irsagent•1m ago•0 comments

Turning Dafny Sets into Sequences [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zAhtW8YFKM
2•larrytheliquid•6m ago•1 comments

Petition: Restore Free and Open Access to the ACM Digital Library

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/restore-fully-free-and-open-access
1•underscoreF•8m ago•0 comments

X Users Have the Power to Edit Any Image Without Permission

https://petapixel.com/2025/12/29/x-users-have-the-power-to-edit-any-image-without-permission/
2•bookofjoe•15m ago•0 comments

We still don't know what Elon Musk's DOGE did

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/30/elon-musk-doge-impact-us-government
3•doener•16m ago•0 comments

Slaughterbots (2019 short film) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg
1•christianqchung•18m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Vektor – A native PHP vector database using HNSW

https://github.com/centamiv/vektor
1•centamiv•18m ago•0 comments

Waymo sues Santa Monica, and the city sues right back: Court fight ahead

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-12-22/fight-between-waymo-santa-monica-goes-to-court
2•lokar•20m ago•1 comments

Attention Is Bayesian Inference

https://medium.com/@vishalmisra/attention-is-bayesian-inference-578c25db4501
2•samwillis•22m ago•0 comments

Unproven air taxi company is spending $126M to take over an L.A. airport

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-11-24/california-air-taxi
1•PaulHoule•22m ago•0 comments

AI and politics and stagflation = workplace fatigue

https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/glassdoor-worker-fatigue-ai-politics/
3•andrewstetsenko•24m ago•0 comments

The Complete Sega Mark III (Retail) Collection

https://nintendosegajapan.com/2025/12/29/the-complete-sega-mark-iii-retail-collection/
1•msephton•24m ago•0 comments

Project ideas to appreciate the art of programming

https://codecrafters.io/blog/programming-project-ideas
4•vitaelabitur•26m ago•0 comments

Leadership Lab: The Craft of Writing Effectively (2014) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM
1•rognjen•27m ago•0 comments

Penn and Teller Help Rob Pike and Dennis Ritchie Play a Prank on Arno Penzias [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxMKuv0A6z4
2•susam•29m ago•0 comments

No Longer Burying the Lead: A New Media Culture for the Metacrisis

https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/no-longer-burying-the-lead
1•rendx•33m ago•1 comments

Alias Method

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alias_method
1•usgroup•37m ago•0 comments

I exposed my Homelab through Cloudflare Tunnels

http://ebourgess.dev/posts/exposing-homelab-through-cloudflare-tunnel/
2•ebourgess•38m ago•2 comments

Christmas 500 years ago was a drunken 6-week feast

https://fortune.com/2025/12/25/medieval-peasant-christmas-was-better-than-modern-holidays-histori...
2•Anon84•42m ago•4 comments

MemCachier Status Currently experiencing instability (for some days already)

https://status.memcachier.com
1•salzig•42m ago•0 comments

ReCollab: Retrieval-Augmented LLMs for Cooperative Ad-Hoc Teammate Modeling

https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22129
1•StatsAreFun•43m ago•0 comments

Coverage.py sleepy snake logo (2019)

https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201912/sleepy_snake.html
2•myroon5•43m ago•0 comments

New York's Subway, an Interview with Matthew Algeo

https://www.exasperatedinfrastructures.com/p/the-best-book-i-read-all-year
1•samsklar1•43m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A dynamic key-value IP allowlist for Nginx

https://github.com/dayt0n/kvauth
1•dayt0n•44m ago•0 comments

NYC Mayoral Inauguration bans Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero alongside explosives

https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/12/30/nyc-mayoral-inauguration-bans-raspberry-pi-and-flipper-zero-...
38•ptorrone•45m ago•13 comments

Show HN: Claude Cognitive – Working memory for Claude Code

https://github.com/GMaN1911/claude-cognitive
4•MirrorEthic•46m ago•1 comments

Nvidia in advanced talks to acquire AI21 in $2-3B deal

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkbh00xnzl
1•hbarka•46m ago•1 comments

A Course in Ring Theory

https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22133
1•StatsAreFun•46m ago•0 comments

The Origami Wheel That Could Explore Lunar Caves

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-origami-wheel-that-could-explore-lunar-caves
1•rbanffy•47m ago•0 comments

You're Getting 'Screen Time' Wrong

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/screen-time-television-internet/684659/
1•Anon84•48m ago•0 comments