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The Business Case for Vanilla JavaScript

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/250430.html
6•LAC-Tech•1y ago

Comments

copypaper•1y 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•1y ago
What benefits of a framework?

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

proc0•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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.

Silicon Valley's Dream City Has Crashed into Small-Town Politics

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/silicon-valleys-dream-city-has-crashed-into-small-town-politics-4521d1bd
1•Anon84•6m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Would you support a law banning filming people in public?

1•dfps•6m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Built a benchmark? Would love to learn

1•ramstar3000•9m ago•0 comments

FrameLab – FPS calculator for PC games, checked against real hardware runs

https://framelab-fps.com/uk
1•BMatiashchuk•9m ago•0 comments

Genius or Mid Life Crisis Lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/founder/comments/1x25aws/genius_or_midlife_crisis/
1•jimmyshoez•12m ago•0 comments

Two Kings of New York: Visualizing the Careers of Jay-Z and Nas

https://streettaichi.com/pages/kings-of-new-york
2•laybak•14m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Open-Source Canva Alternative

https://github.com/shaongitbd/doory
1•Aditya_1•17m ago•0 comments

'AI slop' hides the conversations we should be having

https://doi.org/10.1038/s44387-026-00161-8
1•DeepLogin•18m ago•0 comments

Every US Electrical Outlet Explained [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_1wzYQwnts
2•zdw•21m ago•2 comments

Why OpenAI's latest results dump has left mathematicians in shock

https://theconversation.com/is-this-the-mathocalypse-why-openais-latest-results-dump-has-left-mat...
2•ColinWright•26m ago•1 comments

Amiga Demoscene for Beginners

https://spookbench.net/blog/amiga_dmscn/part0.html
1•nickt•29m ago•0 comments

Temporal Continuity API (Groundbreaking)

https://api.rscapex.com
1•TomKrysos•32m ago•0 comments

PwnPad – hardware hacking platform built for practical learning

https://github.com/twelvesec/PwnPad
2•therepanic•42m ago•0 comments

Build your own decision model

https://nishtahir.com/build-your-own-decision-model/
13•softwaredoug•44m ago•1 comments

A black box recorder for contracts

https://lexifina.com/blog/a-black-box-recorder-for-contracts
2•alansaber•51m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Convertix – A free, client-side QR code generator with customization

https://convertix-fast-imager-co.blogspot.com/p/convertix-free-online-qr-code-generator.html
3•tanjirods•55m ago•0 comments

A mountain of AI math, a few precious bytes

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/10/10/a-mountain-of-ai-math-a-few-precious-bytes/
1•abetusk•56m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's your favorite children's books?

1•lgregg•1h ago•4 comments

Show HN: ManimGX – Manim's API on a Rust/wgpu engine, for 3D videos in Python

https://github.com/academa-labs/manimgx
3•sinaatalay•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Mailbox Viewer – publish FOIA email dumps as a static Gmail-like site

https://github.com/rahimnathwani/mailbox-viewer
1•rahimnathwani•1h ago•0 comments

Wilmund

https://wilmund.com/
2•WillDaSilva•1h ago•0 comments

Back to School with High-Speed Attack Drones

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/stopping-school-shootings-with-security-drones-44e22f75
2•fortran77•1h ago•1 comments

A Stark Warning from a Former AI Doomer

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-stark-warning-from-a-former-ai-doomer/id1515786216?i=1000...
8•_virtu•1h ago•0 comments

When Corn Flakes Were Part of an Anti-Masturbation Crusade

https://www.mentalfloss.com/food/corn-flakes-were-invented-part-anti-masturbation-crusade
1•snarky-comments•1h ago•1 comments

Slipstream – explore F1 results and compare lap times

https://github.com/saccofrancesco/slipstream
1•sh4dow05•1h ago•0 comments

California Did Little to Punish a Raw Milk Farm After Two Girls Got Sick

https://www.propublica.org/article/california-raw-milk-regulation-emily-marris-moonlight-ridge-farm
2•jkestner•1h ago•2 comments

Secret of Orange Cats Revealed After 60-Year Search

https://www.sciencealert.com/secret-of-orange-cats-finally-revealed-after-60-year-search
2•bookofjoe•1h ago•0 comments

We're All Working for AI Now

https://medium.com/@mustafaydemir/were-all-working-for-ai-now-19353aa51e82
2•criexe•1h ago•2 comments

Podcast to Yoto Playlist Sync

https://github.com/veleek/PodcastToYoto
1•veleek•1h ago•1 comments

Agisoon.lol: Predictions of the Singularity

https://www.agisoon.lol/
2•JohnLocke4•1h ago•0 comments