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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•9mo ago

Comments

copypaper•9mo 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•9mo ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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.

Phineas Gage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
1•thunderbong•1m ago•0 comments

The Developer –> Designer Switch

https://c-daniele.github.io/en/posts/2026-02-14-intro-spec-driven-development/
1•cdani•4m ago•1 comments

OpenClaw on $5 chips, no Linux or Node.js

https://www.mimiclaw.io/
1•ssslvky1•17m ago•3 comments

ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/14/nx-s1-5711441/ai-chatgpt-openai-love-betrayal-delusion-chatbot
1•tyjen•19m ago•3 comments

A Framework for Time-Updating Probabilistic Forecasts

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09982
3•Luc•19m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a personal news-curating AI using Ruby and Claude

https://github.com/ashishra0/news-curator
1•ashishra0•19m ago•0 comments

All in on DLang: Why I pivoted to D for web, teaching and graphics in 2025 [pdf]

https://dconf.org/2025/slides/shah.pdf
2•teleforce•21m ago•0 comments

AI and the Quantity and Quality of Creative Products

https://www.nber.org/papers/w34777
1•tonyedgecombe•24m ago•0 comments

AI film school trains next generation of Hollywood moviemakers

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-film-school-trains-next-generation-hollywood-mo...
1•giuliomagnifico•28m ago•0 comments

Pentagon Used Anthropic's Claude in Maduro Venezuela Raid

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-used-anthropics-claude-in-maduro-venezuel...
3•sbuttgereit•30m ago•0 comments

Mandatory driver impairment sensors clear a funding hurdle, but are they ready?

https://apnews.com/article/federal-law-impairment-detection-car-dui-062d40e885a0e32c6cad0ba70163aef8
2•geox•33m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's You Opinon on XMTP

2•julienreszka•34m ago•0 comments

Meeting-Assistant, Local meeting notes assistant and AI analysis in C++

https://github.com/DatanoiseTV/meeting-assistant
1•sylwester•34m ago•1 comments

How to interactively call C code from Chicken Scheme [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twm99YQiN8E
1•AlexeyBrin•37m ago•0 comments

Claude Agent in VS Code: no extension required, Copilot subscription supported

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/agents/third-party-agents#_claude-agent-preview
2•javiercr•38m ago•0 comments

A Deep Dive into Apple's .car File Format

https://dbg.re/posts/car-file-format/
2•MrFinch•41m ago•0 comments

Best PC Specs to Run Local AI Models Like Minimax, Free

https://twitter.com/meta_alchemist/status/2022614255426769129
1•bilsbie•42m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Foundry: Deploy observability without the complexity

https://github.com/SigNoz/foundry
1•nageshbansal•42m ago•0 comments

Mode Prologue: Luxury 98% Mechanical Keyboard

https://modedesigns.com/pages/prologue
1•subdomain•43m ago•1 comments

CEU Economic Seminar Series: Long-Run Consequences of Propaganda in Classroom

https://events.ceu.edu/2024-02-20/ceu-economic-seminar-series-long-run-consequences-propaganda-cl...
1•taubek•47m ago•0 comments

1x Forth: Chuck Moore on Forth (1999) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0NwqF8F0k
3•tosh•50m ago•1 comments

Bothive – An Operating System for AI Agent Swarms

https://bothive.cloud/
2•jeremyace•51m ago•0 comments

Non Asshole Funding for AI Startup – Binary Diffusion

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBHe_y4akAAw6Do?format=png&name=900x900
2•corn13read2•52m ago•2 comments

Show HN: ScreenshotIt – What if a screenshot was just a URL?

https://screenshotit.app
2•rufuspollock•54m ago•0 comments

I got tired of my speaker terminal fighting me, so I rebuilt it

https://fiosproject.de/posts/fixing_my_speaker_system/
2•ls-root•57m ago•1 comments

Rules to Be a Better Thinker in 2026

https://ryanholiday.net/26-rules-to-be-a-better-thinker/
3•rwmj•59m ago•0 comments

AI could eat itself: Competitors (..) steal their secrets and clone them

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/14/ai_risk_distillation_attacks/
2•myk-e•1h ago•0 comments

CPUs are getting so small they're starting to hallucinate

https://twitter.com/lauriewired/status/2022387879390122049
2•guivr•1h ago•1 comments

Bypassing Kernel32.dll for Fun and Nonprofit

https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-02-03
1•agluszak•1h ago•0 comments

Swiyu Swiss e-ID app: security and freedom of choice for Android users

https://www.eid.admin.ch/en/swiyu-wallet-security-and-freedom-of-choice-for-android-users
3•nar001•1h ago•0 comments