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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.

Ask HN: Best Email AI Assistant?

1•watson•1m ago•0 comments

The Arctic: Where Drones Drop Dead and GPS Goes Haywire

https://www.wsj.com/world/where-drones-drop-dead-and-gps-goes-haywire-8e560e87
1•bookofjoe•1m ago•1 comments

How the CPython Compiler Works

https://tenthousandmeters.com/blog/python-behind-the-scenes-2-how-the-cpython-compiler-works/
1•fanf2•1m ago•0 comments

Bauhaus Clock – Most Elegant Clock Screensaver for Mac

https://bauhausclock.com/
1•tambourine_man•3m ago•0 comments

Prime Hacker News

https://dosaygo-studio.github.io/prime-news/?p=90521
1•keepamovin•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Design your own post-AGI civilization with tradeoffs

https://agi.instavm.io
1•thepoet•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Litmus – Specification testing for structured LLM outputs

https://github.com/lukecarr/litmus
1•lukecarr•7m ago•0 comments

Play the Monty Hall Game

https://monty.donk.systems
1•birdculture•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Ssort – I got sick and vibe coded a stream priority sorter

https://github.com/exlee/ssort
1•xlii•10m ago•0 comments

Quality Food Comes from Constraints

https://gist.github.com/breadchris/00f64f3c26ebb9bccb7fd9d94be9d708
1•breadchris•10m ago•0 comments

The Empiricism Gap in Computer Science

https://doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz/p/the-empiricism-gap-in-computer-science
1•azhenley•12m ago•0 comments

Toll roads are spreading in America

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/12/18/toll-roads-are-spreading-in-america
2•smurda•12m ago•1 comments

London Eye architect proposes 14-mile tidal power station off Somerset coast

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/27/london-eye-architect-proposes-14-mile-tidal-p...
1•lostlogin•14m ago•0 comments

The production bug that made me care about undefined behavior

https://gaultier.github.io/blog/the_production_bug_that_made_me_care_about_undefined_behavior.html
1•broken_broken_•15m ago•0 comments

Google tests 30-minute Lecture Audio Overviews on NotebookLM

https://www.testingcatalog.com/exclusive-google-tests-30-minute-audio-lectures-on-notebooklm/
1•gmays•16m ago•0 comments

Bloat in software is getting WAAAY out of hand

2•sdrawkcabsti•16m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: Discord Is Down

1•nabeards•16m ago•0 comments

Email Is Broken – Can Nostr Fix It?

https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzppna0k8s3az5vx8l2rkfs80p5e46c52fmz938pvf5zrp0zwwtvz0qqsk2m...
2•judemon•16m ago•0 comments

Scientists Edited Genes Inside a Living Person for First Time, Saved His Life

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a64815804/crispr-therapy/
1•QueensGambit•17m ago•0 comments

Data-Oriented Design

https://www.dataorienteddesign.com/dodbook/
2•0x54MUR41•19m ago•1 comments

First personalized CRISPR therapy given to baby with genetic disease

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01496-z
1•QueensGambit•19m ago•0 comments

Tesla's Former AI Director Karpathy Sends 'Open Letter' to Software Engineers

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/teslas-former-ai-director-andrej-karpath...
1•hackernj•19m ago•0 comments

Why Everyone Loves Japan

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-everyone-loves-japan
1•craigkerstiens•21m ago•0 comments

Windows 2 for the Apricot PC/Xi

https://www.ninakalinina.com/notes/win2apri/
2•todsacerdoti•21m ago•0 comments

Roblox became the 'it' game for tweens – and a business

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/tech/roblox-explainer
1•paulpauper•22m ago•0 comments

Delivering Higher Pay? Impacts of a Task-Level Pay Standard in the Gig Economy

https://www.nber.org/papers/w34545
1•jandrewrogers•23m ago•0 comments

Epistemological Fault Lines Between Human and Artificial Intelligence

https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19466
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Cult TV Flashback: Otherworld (1985)

https://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2008/11/cult-tv-flashback-62-otherworld-1985....
2•indigodaddy•29m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Does Confluence still suck today?

3•iampotatoman92•31m ago•1 comments

39C3 Grafana Dashboard

https://dashboard.congress.ccc.de/public-dashboards/e6cf86b287304662b4d1b8eb31b5ab50
1•immibis•32m ago•1 comments