Show HN: Use Go's HTML/template to write React-like code

Hi all,

I'm currently working on my hobby project, and one of the fun constraints I put in was to build using as less dependencies as possible.

I chose Go as it has a really good standard library, and all went well for building backend. But for frontend, I was wondering whether I should break the constraint and go for React. I tried options like Web Components, but I really didn't like the ergonomics and I didn't want to use jQuery either.

Out of curiosity, I was exploring Go's html/template package to see if I can write UIs in a React-like manner. I found most of the online docs using the "slots" like approach which I found unintuitive.

But after trial and error, I found an approach that's very close to React and without using any 3rd party packages like templ.

I'd like to share this with the community, not sure if it's a common approach - https://www.sheshbabu.com/posts/react-like-composition-using...

Go's template system (both text/template and html/template) is pretty powerful. You can add custom functions and partial templates too. I use these concepts in https://docs.hofstadter.io to generate any code, not just frontend. Hugo uses the same system to do static site generation, which may be even closer to what you are showing. Helm templates is the epitome of the worst use (go/templating yaml files, I use CUE for this now).

For frontend, as in your example, this has the older feel for UI, where each navigation requires a round trip to the server and a full-page response to the client. This is part of the reason people have moved to React and full-stack TS. I love Go, but I'm definitely a big fan of writing webapps in Next at this point. React Server Components are a really nice DX.

I now generate much of the React / Next code at develop time, rather than runtime. Hof's original goal was to make adding a field to a type a one-line change in a source-of-truth file, and then generate all the changes through a full-stack app by running `hof gen`.

Huh I was able to click on it fine, maybe it wasnt clickable initially?

Ah yes, maybe my mistake!

I love React too, but it pulls in a lot of dependencies and the dependencies need periodic maintenance.

Sometimes you get the feeling that you're spending a significant chunk of your time not writing code but fighting with configs and dependency churn.

Using Go's html/template definitely makes the UI feel dated because of re-rendering, but I rarely notice it in my side project. My next exploration is to use HTMX.

I'm planning to gradually add dependencies like HTMX to see how far I can go to reach React's smoothness.