Ask HN: Which JavaScript frameworks do you use?

AmpersandJS (http://ampersandjs.com), which is more a set of rules for modular libraries than a framework (but it's still a framework).

1. One or two weeks to learn and let it start sinking in.

2. Speed: probably 3. I can make the code do what it needs to without much effort.

3. Quite maintainable. In fact, I've contributed a few bug fixes and feature improvements to the source repos. In my own code, making changes also happens quickly.

4. I chose it after reading Human Javascript (http://humanjavascript.com) (which AmpersandJS is based on) and poking around with the boilerplate generator app. It all instantly clicked.

The virtual DOM is sick on ReactJS. However, I ran into quite a bit of trouble when I used Semantic UI + Reactjs for implementing a modal window. Because React works with the virtual DOM, you're not supposed to modify the DOM directly or else React loses track of what's going on. So when I implemented my Semantic UI modal, I would get DOM errors and my application would freeze. What would happen is that Semantic UI's modal changes the DOM directly when you open and close the modal (as in, without going through React's virtual DOM), which makes the whole application unusable.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that yes, React's virtual DOM has its pros, but it will occasionally also have cons (like when you use a third party .js that modifies the DOM directly).

I'm new to React though (two weeks). So there may be well known work arounds for this 'problem'. Since I do not know of any, if anyone does, please share ! :)

Have you started using the new components available in knockout?

http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/component-overview.html

As a knockout enthusiast I was excited to see that get developed.

Aurelia.

http://aurelia.io

https://github.com/aurelia

It has the most streamlined, elegant conventions of any framework I've looked at, it focuses on writing in plain, modern JavaScript (ES2015/2016), it's highly modular and plugable, and it tries as much as possible to always comply with modern standards.

Hopefully performance is on par with React when it hits official release so that at least a few more people take a serious look at it. It's unfortunate that so much hype surrounds Angular and React simply due to Google and Facebook backing them.

Don't get me wrong. I also like React. However, the hype is a little unwarranted. People treat it as if it's the end-all, be-all way to write JS from now until the end of time.

So naturally, I've used jQuery for a few years now:

1. Time to learn: I think 1-2 hours

2. Overall dev speed: initially 3, but as you dive into more complex pages that need to e.g.: retain state between AJAX calls, it moves towards a 1

3. Maintainability: 1. Keeping track of selectors grows to be very tricky business.

4. Why I chose jQuery: I started with it before the explosion of JS frameworks (and I've always said that jQuery started the golden era of JS that we're in), and I would still choose it today if I need to deal with legacy sites at all.

I have also used ReactJS:

1. Time to learn: I think between 16-40 React hours to really grok components, their lifecycle and how to communicate between them. It's a little reminiscent of components in Mobile development, but really understanding props vs state can take a while

2. Development speed: 2. There's a lot of boilerplate involved (usually render, getInitalState, getDefaultProps)

3. Maintainability: 3. Easily the most maintainable and reusable JS code I've ever written

4. Why did I choose React? I was tired of writing code for the views in the backend (PHP) and then in JS when the data changed. React makes it easy to write once and control the lifecycle of HTML elements