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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.

Show HN: I built an AI that calls you until you wake up

https://wakecall.online/
1•rahma_tm•5m ago•0 comments

SHP: 700x faster context recall by treating memory as network

https://github.com/silentnoisehun/Silent-Hope-Protocol
1•Hope_Genom•6m ago•1 comments

A Year of Typing: My NumPy Fellowship Retrospective

https://blog.scientific-python.org/numpy/fellowship-program-2025-retrospective/
1•todsacerdoti•8m ago•0 comments

Anthropic bans use of API in OpenCode CLI tool

https://github.com/anomalyco/opencode/issues/7410
1•sergiotapia•8m ago•0 comments

We just open sourced the code-simplifier agent we use on the Claude Code team

https://twitter.com/bcherny/status/2009450715081789767
1•cleanexit0•8m ago•0 comments

SFC vs. VIZIO: who can enforce the GPL?

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1052734/5903e175673caeef/
1•pabs3•10m ago•0 comments

GPLv2 and Installation Requirements

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1052842/52c45fb8bcc3fade/
1•pabs3•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Open-source multimodal AI that runs in the browser

https://johnjboren.github.io/ai-assistant.html
1•EschatonCometh•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Layoffstoday – Open database tracking for 10k Companies

https://layoffstoday.io/
1•doremon0902•13m ago•0 comments

Pituffik Space Base

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituffik_Space_Base
1•CGMthrowaway•14m ago•0 comments

From old English to modern American English in one monologue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842OX2_vCic
1•gk1•14m ago•0 comments

Financial Hardship Shows Up in Baby Brains

https://nautil.us/how-financial-hardship-shows-up-in-baby-brains-1260476/
1•fleahunter•16m ago•0 comments

Testing 2 open-weight models across coding tasks: GLM 4.7 and MiniMax M2.1

https://blog.kilo.ai/p/open-weight-models-are-getting-serious
1•heymax054•16m ago•0 comments

When AI writes almost all code, what happens to software engineering?

https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/when-ai-writes-almost-all-code-what
3•Brajeshwar•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A commitment model for usage billing

https://twitter.com/tryflexprice/status/2009226683849773430
1•sudeepsd__•21m ago•0 comments

Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by 'My Own Morality'

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html
8•Stevvo•21m ago•0 comments

Ask AI via Lightning payments (no accounts, no API keys, no stored history)

https://satsforai.com/
1•LightProx•23m ago•1 comments

The most popular Go dependency is

https://blog.thibaut-rousseau.com/blog/the-most-popular-go-dependency-is/
1•bzGoRust•27m ago•0 comments

Ralph Wiggum Experiment – Can AI meaningfully improve through iterative loops?

https://github.com/UtpalJayNadiger/ralphwiggumexperiment
1•iacguy•28m ago•0 comments

Implementing a web server in a single printf() call (2014)

https://tinyhack.com/2014/03/12/implementing-a-web-server-in-a-single-printf-call/
1•nateb2022•28m ago•1 comments

Kelly Evans: Goodbye, Google

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/07/kelly-evans-goodbye-google.html
1•cebert•32m ago•1 comments

Spirit Cave Resilience: How Do We Explain a 10k-Year Continuity

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/spirit-cave-resilience-how-do-...
1•1659447091•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: LSP Skill – IntelliSense for Coding Agents That Works

https://lsp-client.github.io/
1•observerw•40m ago•0 comments

Against the 'METR Graph'

https://arachnemag.substack.com/p/the-metr-graph-is-hot-garbage
1•zygmunt417•40m ago•0 comments

Cellular Landscape

https://gaelmcgill.artstation.com/projects/Pm0JL1
2•o4c•41m ago•0 comments

Is Craigslist the Last Real Place on the Internet?

https://www.wired.com/story/is-craigslist-the-last-real-place-on-the-internet/
6•susam•41m ago•1 comments

Lisa

https://github.com/blencorp/lisa
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Show HN: I built OnePlayer: A lightweight, Material 3 offline player

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.googol.android.apps.oneplayer&hl=en_US
1•iZakirSheikh•44m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Call Your Loved Ones

https://cylo.mkaye.dev/
2•mrkaye97•45m ago•0 comments

Promise Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise_theory
1•dvrp•46m ago•0 comments