Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022? • Hacker News Board

Post by dt2m » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

arvinsim wrote: post #39

dt2m wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no question that it's still highly in demand, but as a user I despise React apps. Not that there's anything wrong with the technology - well-written React with minimal dependencies can provide a great and responsive UX. In practise this rarely is the case. I have yet to use a React app that consistently respects Cmd+click as my intent to open something in a new tab, has sub-100ms draw times for any UI action,…

You are basically asking for a native OS app, which the web cannot match. But users demand them anyway on the web so here were are.

Of course I would prefer a native app, but I don't think it is unreasonable of me to expect a web app to:

- Respect the UI conventions of web browsers and not override standard behavior

- Respond immediately to user input

- Not take up hundreds of megabytes of RAM

I have yet to use a React app that doesn't immediately "feel" like it's using React. There's some weird added latency that I can't really describe, but I don't feel it on Angular apps.