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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•10mo ago

Comments

copypaper•10mo 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•10mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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.

Google.org Future of Work: 5 years of impact and lessons for the AI era

https://blog.google/company-news/outreach-and-initiatives/google-org/future-of-work-impact-report/
1•salkahfi•1m ago•0 comments

Custom AI Smart Speaker

https://openhome.com
1•edf13•2m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Ten YoE as a software engineer, what's next with LLMs coming in fast?

1•Tmkly•5m ago•0 comments

Finding Hope in the Shape of Failure: Bottling Infinity in Distributed Systems

https://forkracefold.com/
1•taylorbuley•6m ago•0 comments

WebMCP

https://github.com/webfuse-com/awesome-webmcp
2•tonysurfly•8m ago•0 comments

Given a narrator

https://andrewshawcare.com/given-a-narrator/
1•andrewshawcare•9m ago•0 comments

Mr. Nobody for Putin

https://ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/27/gospodin-nikto-za-putina-a188312
1•profstasiak•12m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Did GitHub Remove Opus and Sonnet from Their Copilot Pro Subscription?

3•lgl•14m ago•0 comments

Web Rewind – A Touch of Nostalgia

https://www.web-rewind.com/
1•mistat•15m ago•0 comments

Echoed – A Lightweight Discord Alternative

https://echoed.gg/
1•shaongitbd•15m ago•0 comments

The State of Allocators in 2026

https://cetra3.github.io/blog/state-of-allocators-2026/
2•ashvardanian•18m ago•0 comments

ASAT (Advanced Spreadsheet Alteration Tool)

https://github.com/okt4v/ASAT
1•okt4v•19m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Generate, Clean, and Prepare LLM Training Data, All-in-One

https://github.com/OpenDCAI/DataFlow
1•Junnn•21m ago•0 comments

Would maintaining such an open-source project be helpful to my career?

https://github.com/keminze/volo-data
1•kkmz•21m ago•0 comments

BriefMe – AI meeting briefs auto-generated from your calendar (no manual input)

https://www.briefme.wtf
1•Dev_Alex•21m ago•0 comments

Claude – Ask me 10 clarifying questions

https://zencapital.substack.com/p/claude-ask-me-10-clarifying-questions
1•zenincognito•24m ago•1 comments

If AI Writes the Code, Who Builds the Next Open Source Project?

https://blog.scottlogic.com/2026/03/15/if-ai-writes-the-code-who-builds-the-next-open-source-proj...
1•ColinEberhardt•25m ago•0 comments

Would You Help Me?

https://comuniq.xyz/post?t=860
1•01-_-•25m ago•0 comments

3D tic tac toe – coded via WhatsApp massages to OpenClaw

https://arthur-ficial.github.io/tictactoe-3d/
1•franze•27m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Claude Code Phantom Usage

1•randoments•28m ago•0 comments

Bonsai: Use It Where Eval() Would Be Reckless

https://danfry1.github.io/bonsai-js/
1•thunderbong•28m ago•0 comments

Google's Gemini AI chatbot rolling out to all Hongkongers

https://hongkongfp.com/2026/03/16/googles-gemini-ai-chatbot-finally-rolling-out-to-all-hongkongers/
1•ksec•29m ago•1 comments

OpenCLI – Turn any website into a CLI, reusing your Chrome login

https://github.com/jackwener/opencli
1•jackwener•31m ago•0 comments

South Korea to get functioning Google Maps

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3345293/south-korea-finally-get-fully-functionin...
2•ksec•31m ago•0 comments

The Coding Agent Bootstrap

https://www.monperrus.net/martin/coding-agent-bootstrap
2•ColinEberhardt•31m ago•0 comments

Catenator – an open standard for machine-readable AI specs

https://catenator.com/docs
1•parthupadhye•32m ago•1 comments

Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke Against Liquid, Shopify's OSS Ruby Template Engine

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/13/liquid/
2•talboren•34m ago•1 comments

Rise of the AI Soldiers

https://time.com/article/2026/03/09/ai-robots-soldiers-war/
2•bbor•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Paperverse, an Hyperbolic Presentation

https://paperverse.net
2•Nesco•35m ago•0 comments

Neo-Stoicism is the religion of the 21st century

2•Bashkiroff•36m ago•1 comments