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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•11mo ago

Comments

copypaper•11mo 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•11mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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.

The Centrality Fallacy and ACM

https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/the-centrality-fallacy-and-acm/
1•pykq•32s ago•0 comments

DeepSeek-V4 Preview Version is launched

1•lanbin•43s ago•0 comments

OpenInterpretability

https://openinterp.org/
1•caiovicentino•4m ago•0 comments

DeepSeek v4

https://api-docs.deepseek.com/
2•impact_sy•5m ago•0 comments

2026 Ruby on Rails Community Survey

https://railsdeveloper.com/survey/
2•mooreds•6m ago•0 comments

MemCoT: Test-Time Scaling Through Memory-Driven Chain-of-Thought

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.08216
2•MemTensor•6m ago•1 comments

Claude Opus 4.6 was nerfed prior to release of Opus 4.7

https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/2047387029915271445
1•nomilk•6m ago•0 comments

AI Kills HTML?

https://twitter.com/zan2434/status/2046982383430496444
1•cuttothechase•6m ago•0 comments

What is on my phone in 2026

https://joshblais.com/blog/what-is-on-my-phone-in-2026/
1•colinprince•7m ago•0 comments

I gave an AI persistent memory, self-learning, and earned autonomy

https://github.com/WingedGuardian/GENesis-AGI
1•genesiscogai•7m ago•1 comments

DeepSeek-V4 Technical Report [pdf]

https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Pro/blob/main/DeepSeek_V4.pdf
3•tianyicui•11m ago•0 comments

Medical Student Created Top Influencer 'Emily Hart' Using AI, Making $ Thousands

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ai-generated-influencer-emily-hart-maga-1793120
1•Baljhin•15m ago•2 comments

The System of Context for Production AI

https://www.mezmo.com/aura
1•pranay01•18m ago•0 comments

Nev – keyboard focused GUI and terminal text editor

https://github.com/Nimaoth/Nev
1•archargelod•21m ago•0 comments

I used to generically engineer plants to increase yield,now I sell garlic online

https://Demeterfamilyfarm.com
1•Hilliard_Ohiooo•22m ago•0 comments

XOXO Festival Archive

https://xoxofest.com/
1•surprisetalk•26m ago•0 comments

Introducing Data Exports

https://socket.dev/blog/introducing-data-exports
1•ilreb•32m ago•0 comments

Show HN: RustNmap

1•greatwallisme•33m ago•0 comments

These are the countries moving to ban social media for children

https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/23/social-media-ban-children-countries-list/
1•evo_9•38m ago•0 comments

AI agent designs a complete RISC-V CPU from 219-word spec sheet in just 12 hours

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/ai-agent-designs-a-complete-ri...
2•maxloh•39m ago•1 comments

Fancy-Regex 0.18.0 Release

https://github.com/fancy-regex/fancy-regex/releases/tag/0.18.0
1•indentit•40m ago•1 comments

Why I Write (1946)

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/
21•RyanShook•40m ago•2 comments

Vibe Check: GPT-5.5 Has It All

https://every.to/vibe-check/gpt-5-5
1•swolpers•41m ago•0 comments

Cert-Checker

https://github.com/mrtoadie/go-check-cert
1•ashitlerferad•45m ago•0 comments

A Eulogy for Vim

https://drewdevault.com/blog/Forking-vim/
2•signa11•45m ago•1 comments

Short and Long-Term Consequences of Intra-Household Disease Spread [pdf]

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29524/w29524.pdf
1•alphabetatango•50m ago•0 comments

Project Omni

https://github.com/misaeldasilva123ms96-commits/Projeto-Omni
1•zaydenrivas•54m ago•0 comments

Too much noise with AI startups

1•xtannotnoise•54m ago•0 comments

Apple Changes Prongs on MacBook Chargers; Breaks Compatibility

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256262949?sortBy=rank
1•gardnr•54m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Trustless Campaigns – Gecko transforms brand-creator deals

https://www.geckovision.tech
1•ernanibmurtinho•55m ago•0 comments