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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.

Investors are having doubts about Elon Musk's grandiose ambitions

https://economist.com/business/2026/08/05/investors-are-having-doubts-about-elon-musks-grandiose-...
1•andsoitis•1m ago•0 comments

To Predict the Next Token

https://sanghoon.io/journal/2026-08-04-distillation
1•sanghoonio•1m ago•0 comments

Codex Users Are Losing Banked Rate Limit Resets to a Quiet 30 Day Clock

https://startupfortune.com/codex-users-are-losing-banked-rate-limit-resets-to-a-quiet-30-day-clock/
1•newsomix9xl•2m ago•1 comments

Esp32pin.com: a pinout reference for ESP32 series

https://esp32pin.com/
1•sohkamyung•2m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Was preamble size a red herring? Cache churn vs. harness costs

1•Marvin_RunAI•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Python Concurrency Testing with Frontrun

https://github.com/lucaswiman/frontrun
1•lucaswiman•4m ago•0 comments

Disagreements about AI are usually disagreements about future AI capabilities

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-three-ai-pills
1•maxutility•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN - Mirafold – Generative UI for Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini CLI

https://mirafold.com/
1•kserrec•5m ago•0 comments

President Donald J. Trump, an individual, Plaintiff, vs. BBC [pdf]

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.703382/gov.uscourts.flsd.703382.106.0.pdf
1•petethomas•5m ago•0 comments

Data centers show their primary colors

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2026/08/05/data-centers-show-their-primary-colo...
1•mapping365•8m ago•0 comments

Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

https://www.costar.com/article/970809918/nashville-council-approves-eminent-domain-action-to-halt...
2•mapping365•10m ago•0 comments

AOHP: OS-Level Agent Harness for Personalized, Efficient and Secure Interaction

https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23449
1•zhaoshanhui•11m ago•0 comments

Reading an Abstract Like a Skeptic

https://scrollpaper.com/blog/reading-an-abstract-like-a-skeptic
1•JayS3•13m ago•0 comments

AI Hacking, Fearmongering and Prometheus

https://askmike.org/articles/ai-hacking-fearmongering-prometheus/
1•askmike•16m ago•0 comments

When Deny Doesn't Win

https://blogs.zethian.com/when-deny-doesnt-win
1•sixthsense•17m ago•0 comments

Meta AI agent hacked external company during testing

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-06/meta-ai-reports-agent-hacked-external-company-during-testi...
1•Khaine•18m ago•0 comments

What if AI agents shared solutions across users?

1•markmatsushima•20m ago•0 comments

I Didn't Realize How Addicted I Was to My Phone–Until I Went to Prison

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/phone-screen-time-prison-pg-sittenfeld-8c3b186b
3•fortran77•29m ago•1 comments

Alwide – An Open-Source Lightweight TUI IDE in C with Mouse, LSP and Tree-sitter

https://github.com/arnauda-gh/Alwide
2•peter_d_sherman•32m ago•0 comments

You won't believe the stupid shit the Pentagon puts in diplomats' system prompts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HBTCT4FmAc
3•logicallee•33m ago•2 comments

Virginia Orders Data Centers to Pay for Dedicated New Electric Infrastructure

https://www.realtor.com/news/real-estate-news/virginia-data-center-electric-infrastructure-spanbe...
2•mapping365•35m ago•0 comments

Democratic lawmakers propose 3-year moratorium on new data centers in Oregon

https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/08/04/democratic-lawmakers-propose-three-year-moratorium-...
3•ChrisArchitect•35m ago•1 comments

A Universal Theory of Brain Function [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPj9D9LgK2A
3•binyu•37m ago•0 comments

Multi-GPU Kernels, Intelligence per Watt, Heterogeneous Inference, and More [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8dz2FX0_uY
1•gmays•38m ago•0 comments

RF Filter Design for ESP32-S3, Part 1: The Ideal Filter and First Layout

https://dispatch.altivlabs.com/esp32-s3-rf-filter-design-part-1/
1•yourstruly-br•39m ago•0 comments

LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

https://www.bfswa.blog/p/llms-wont-break-symmetric-crypto
14•rowbin•46m ago•3 comments

I found my first users from conversations happening online

https://agenmatic.ai/
3•Nancylily•48m ago•0 comments

I Built a Blog and Forgot to Write

https://benjcal.space/blog/i-built-a-blog-and-forgot-to-write/
6•roryokane•51m ago•2 comments

The Most Arrogant Science Book Ever Written [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO9iRDPXvT4
5•yomismoaqui•51m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Clean up ugly articles for nicer reading experience

https://leidnedya.github.io/markweb/
3•otherayden•52m ago•2 comments