I agree, I hate unnecessary hypercomplexity.

Most of the time, it's enough to build in a simple, clean, and lightweight way. Just like in the old days. Your server's resources will also thank you. Furthermore, the simplicity of web pages is also rewarded by search engines.

If it were up to me, I'd build sites exclusively in .md format :)

Think Xstate[0] machines are a little more intuitive than the conditional value structuring displayed here in the example, but it is an interesting idea indeed.

[0]: https://github.com/statelyai/xstate?tab=readme-ov-file#super...

Perhaps a bad argument, but for some people a very compelling one...

Why is that a bad argument? The author strongly dislikes React and so wrote an alternative that is radically more simple, which sounds like a perfectly sane argument.

I still believe immediate rendering is the only way for easy-to-reason-about UI building. And I believe this is why early React took off - a set of simple functions that take state and output page layout. Too bad DOM architecture is not compatible with direct immediate rendering. Shadow DOM or tree diffing shenanigans under the hood are needed.

I genuinely don't understand why this model is the norm. As a game developer working in my own engine, UI is unbelievably straight-forward: the game has state. The master Render() function draws all of the graphics according to the current state, called at framerate times per second. Nothing in Render() can change the state of the program. The program can be run headlessly with Render() pre-processed out completely. The mental model is so easy to work with. There is a sleep-management routine to save on CPU usage when idle, and dirty logic to avoid re-drawing static content constantly. I feel like the world would save 90% of its GUI development time if it didn't do whatever the fuck reactive UIs are doing.