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Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

htmx.org

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Re: Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

#13
post #9

Comparing it with React is a low bar, since a lot of people are unhappy with React. Arguments like "React is popular, AI knows it", or "React is popular, lots of component have been written in it" seem weak. A proper antithesis for htmlx should compares it with SPA.

HTMX can be used as a tool for building SPAs, so I don't think it makes sense to compare it with SPA.

What's an SPA if not a single web page where clicking on things causes that UI to update in-place in different ways?

Re: Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

#14
My comment from the other thread:

The CEO of gumroad mentioned on twitter that he had tried out htmx for a project but decided to go with NextJS instead. I asked him if he was willing to write up his experience and he graciously agreed to do so. I have been looking for a thoughtful negative experience with htmx to host on the htmx website and I am very thankful he was willing to put in the work to produce one.

Re: Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

#15
"For example, when building complex forms with dynamic validation and conditional fields, we found ourselves writing convoluted server-side logic to handle what would be straightforward client-side operations in React."

Anakin Padme meme: "You still implement validation on the server-side as well, right.... right?"

Re: Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

#17

I like how they compare server-side validation with React's client-side (only?) one. Wasn't able to relate to other puns all that much unfortunately.

Yea this piece is often left out and is kinda the most important. A single set of validation, on the server is required. There are tons of reasonable solutions with different tradeoffs for how you run that validation on the client. But two duplicate sets of validation or client only validation are two very, very dark paths.

Re: Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

#19
post #15

"For example, when building complex forms with dynamic validation and conditional fields, we found ourselves writing convoluted server-side logic to handle what would be straightforward client-side operations in React." Anakin Padme meme: "You still implement validation on the server-side as well, right.... right?"

Yes. But you do it once at submission, not once per page.

Re: Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx

#20
> AI and Tooling Support: It’s worth noting that AI tools are intimately familiar with Next.js and not so much with htmx

This is stated as a very matter-of-fact downside, but this is a pretty crazy portent for the future of dev tools / libraries / frameworks / languages.

Predictions:

- LLMs will further amplify the existing winner-take-all, first-mover nature of dev tools

- LLMs will encourage usage of open-source tools because they will be so much more useful with more/better training data

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