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•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•12mo 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.

Show HN: Free Apple Shortcut that scans receipts to a Google Sheet

https://www.expensebot.ai/blog/apple-shortcuts-receipt-scanner
1•balahura•16s ago•0 comments

What do the fundamental constants of physics tell us about life?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09892
1•sebg•2m ago•0 comments

Qwen 3.6 27B SAE

https://huggingface.co/caiovicentino1/qwen36-27b-sae-papergrade
1•caiovicentino•3m ago•0 comments

Higher racial diversity in business, law schools linked to higher grad salaries

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01273-6
1•laurex•4m ago•0 comments

Light phone launches a developer program for LightOS

https://www.lightphonethings.com
2•laurencemd•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sprogeny – mashup public Spotify playlists

https://sprogeny.com/
2•ogou•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Free no-signup site auditor – secrets, subdomain takeover, CVEs

https://theionproject.com/ionprobe/
3•TheIOn-Project•6m ago•0 comments

Do You Know Indiegogo?

https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/instantsite/instantsite
2•emanuilv•6m ago•0 comments

Proxies All the Way Down

https://dadrian.io/blog/posts/exe-github/
2•bryanmikaelian•7m ago•0 comments

The upsell game – Vercel upselling tactics revealed

https://theupsellgame.com/
3•bartoindahouse•8m ago•0 comments

NASA's X-59 Shows Off Early Flight Test Maneuvers

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/quesst/2026/04/30/x-59-update-043026/
2•big_toast•8m ago•1 comments

Evaluative AI and Semantic Topology

https://gsnv.substack.com/p/evaluative-ai-and-semantic-topology
2•laurex•9m ago•0 comments

The Current Impact of AI on Engineering Velocity: What 400 Companies Are Seeing [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37K6M-DIdF0
2•champagnepapi•10m ago•0 comments

Visualizing the ecosystem of AI agents and orchestration tools

https://www.aistackradar.dev/
3•erharddinhobl•12m ago•0 comments

OpenAI tells ChatGPT models to stop talking about goblins

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/openai-tells-chatgpt-models-to-stop-talking-about-gobli...
2•galaxyLogic•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built the missing layer between email and DocuSign

https://onerequest.app/
2•pratikgcet1985•13m ago•0 comments

Scorpions Wield Metal-Tipped Weapons

https://nautil.us/scorpions-wield-metal-tipped-weapons-1280315
1•Brajeshwar•13m ago•0 comments

Numbers No Machine Can Reach

https://darkomulej.substack.com/p/numbers-no-machine-can-reach
1•Darius-BC•15m ago•0 comments

Auto Agent Protocol – open A2A profile lets AI agents talk to car dealerships

https://github.com/auto-agent-protocol/auto-agent-protocol
1•yankouskia•18m ago•0 comments

Resumes are dead, personal agents are next

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/30/these-2-job-seekers-built-ai-chatbots-to-talk-to-recruiters-for-t...
1•ogou•18m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Capture the Flag game where LLMs are the only players

https://github.com/Megapixel99/capture-the-flag
1•megapixel99•19m ago•0 comments

Met's Palantir deployment turns heat on its own officers

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/met_police_palantir_deployment_cop_probe/
3•abdelhousni•19m ago•1 comments

DeepSeek: Thinking with Visual Primitives [pdf]

https://huggingface.co/datasets/NodeLinker/deepseek-ai-Thinking-with-Visual-Primitives-deleted-re...
3•krackers•21m ago•0 comments

A Prescription for Fixing the Prevailing Wage System [pdf]

https://ifp.org/wp-content/uploads/IFP_Prevailing_Wage_Experience_Benchmarking.pdf
1•rustoo•22m ago•0 comments

Neural surrogate experiments for physics simulation, automated with Opus and Cod

https://blog.1001ud.me/technical/experimental/physics-ml/neural-surrogates
1•lekan_digital•23m ago•0 comments

Benchmarking a Bug Scanner

https://blog.detail.dev/posts/bug-scanner/
1•drob•24m ago•1 comments

3D Tic Tac Toe

https://apps.apple.com/at/app/3d-ttt/id6763501981
1•franze•25m ago•1 comments

Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/ai-labor-work-force-silicon-valley.html
4•reducesuffering•26m ago•0 comments

We Built AI Agents That Think, Shop, and Choose Like Real Consumers

https://sediman.com/research/ai-agents-consumer-research
1•JasonHEIN•26m ago•0 comments

You've Got (Too Much) Mail: Behind the Scenes of the 3/25/26 Voice Outage

https://discord.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-of-the-3-25-26-voice-outage
1•cyndunlop•26m ago•0 comments