Ask HN: What web development stack do you prefer in 2024?

https://jstreb.hgreer.com is my lastest fun project, and it's seriously just javascript. Originally it depended on math.js for matrix operations but I ripped out that dependency and wrote my own linear algebra code for about a 20x performance boost.

For actual work, I've got one in sqlite / flask / htmx, and another in tensorflowjs + react + tanstack + firebase. I'm having opinions about the latter- a recent meeting started with me putting the url for the home page into a browser and then counting out loud until enough of the serverless stuff spun up for the interface to load. I got to 24, which was past "making my point" into "awkward"

Yes it’s the echo chamber of the promotion funnels that makes it appear as if everyone were jumping ship every few days.

In my bubble, Angular and React are the primary frontend frameworks, with Vue sometimes being ahead and sometimes behind either. Virtually no one uses Svelte in my circles., but most folks have heard of it or have applied it in their side projects. HTMX is even more niche, still up for discovery for most folks, don’t know it well enough to comment. I prefer Vue and Angular DX but I favor React component libraries, it’s complicated. My absolute favorite is PureScript with React.

In most cases, backend is Spring on Java for well-defined or rather systematically approached applications, and Python or TypeScript for something that can run on AWS Lambdas and a junior dev might become responsible for. I think .NET is a no less decent choice for that matter. Go for rather small applications that need to touch on layers beneath the application layer, not the best choice to express complex business logic. I personally just pick the JVM stack with Kotlin and Spring, and deploy to AWS.

Rust is too unstable for long-term maintenance but deserves to be respected, I try to push Rust (though I’ve spent most of my time in C++) for smoother collaboration and simpler code review—there’s little I ever need to check after the Rust compiler—mostly the business logic and some axioms, in addition this raises the bar for quality contributions. Having to deal with low-key merges after the fact, sometimes even circumventing CI, is not pleasant at all.

Therefore, having the source of QA truth in the compiler is a boon to my productivity, hope it manages to obviate even more test suites, lifting more of the business logic into the type system, the way you can do it in Haskell or, even more powerful, Idris, but that’s a bit off-topic. Yet that’s what I choose if I need correctness.

Are you able to share the types of applications you've built?

> I feel that React is not the default framework

It doesn't really matter from a technical standpoint, you can build the same UI with any framework (or none). React is still a good default choice if you want to rely on the ecosystem or if you are planning on working with other people. There are lots of devs using react daily at work. Svelte may have twitter-appeal, but not very many big companies are using it.

Great take. My project's tech stack is React on the frontend (without Next) and C# on the backend. For me this strikes the right balance of simplicity, performance, productivity and longevity.