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If not React, then what?

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Re: If not React, then what?

#91

Post by mollerhoj »

quantadev wrote: post #61
goosejuice wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generalizing much? React is as popular as it is because of inertia. React holds an important space but its hardly the only tool that can succeed in a "large project with lots of screen updates and state changes". That's ridiculous.

The reason I said "(or Vue)" was specifically to say that there are other leading frameworks. I didn't say "or Angluar" because in my opinion it's a race between React and Vue at this point. But if you think there's a third contender, let me know. I'm always looking to learn. My main point was to compare "frameworks" v.s. "no frameworks", rather than to say that React is best, but if you want my opinion then yes I do…

Have you ever worked on a project that used Rails, Laravel, Django or Spring? Without being a SPA? For many (most) websites, I find that these are far superior to client side heavy SPAs with json apis (react, vue etc).

Re: If not React, then what?

#93

Post by sakesun »

simonw wrote: post #26
msoad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React works because I can hire engineers that can be productive quickly. A lot of tech conversations leave the talent pool aside as if it's easy to find good engineers in all of the options you might have. The ecosystem is another aspect. You have so many great options for off the shelf components and libraries with React that you might not have with other frameworks. Before anyone mentions Custom Elements and Web Co…

"React works because I can hire engineers that can be productive quickly. A lot of tech conversations leave the talent pool aside as if it's easy to find good engineers in all of the options you might have." That's covered in this section: https://infrequently.org/2024/11/if-not-react-then-what/#%22... "The ecosystem is another aspect. You have so many great options for off the shelf components and libraries with Rea…

I think people prefer ecosystem with many resourceful components

https://github.com/brillout/awesome-react-components

This point is not directly covered in the article.

Re: If not React, then what?

#94

Post by sakesun »

ganksalot wrote: post #36
hu3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for personal attacks. And there's also the other side: people who insist in overusing React. Perhaps that's what the author refers to. I for one have see HTMX eat React for breakfast in a few of my clients during consulting.

> No need for personal attacks. i don't know about all that, but this is an incredibly tired diatribe. > Perhaps that's what the author refers to. they are clearly not.

They are clearly not.

"In short, nobody should start a new project in the 2020s based on React. Full stop."

Re: If not React, then what?

#95

Post by peutetre »

Rohansi wrote: post #92
peutetre wrote: post #90

The only sure cure for the JavaScript blues is WebAssembly. Use something like Leptos and be happy: https://www.leptos.dev/

The treadmill continues.

Well, it's more like graduating from a kid's tricycle to a mountain bike.

Sure the tricycle had streamers on the handlebars and the little basket on the front was cute, but you can get more places with a mountain bike.

Re: If not React, then what?

#96

Post by oliwarner »

> React developers are web developers.

This has felt increasingly untrue recently. I hope I'm just experiencing the peak of the bell curve but I've been bumping into more and more devs who only have experience in SPA React and associated styling frameworks. Ask them to actually style something and they flake out.

I was used to some tribalism in backends (everyone thinks theirs in the best and equally hates PHP devs and Wordpress) but can all publish a static page if asked.

It's a self fulfilling issue. Mid-managers want React because Facebook and pre-juniors train to meet job postings. Not enough question it.

Re: If not React, then what?

#97

Post by senko »

simonw wrote: post #37

A fun thing about reading Alex is that you can tell he's had the same arguments over and over again for a decade now and he's frustrated with having to keep on making the same points and getting the exact same responses. Most of the people commenting on this piece won't have read this whole article (it's long, and internet attention spans are short). As a result, you'll find plenty of the comments here were exactly p…

I happen to agree with most of what he said, but man, that tone was insufferable ...

(non-wrapping extra long lines have not helped but maybe that's on my user agent)

My rules of thumb:

* informational website / blog - static frontend (Django! :heart:)

* some interactivity - htmx

* a lot of interactivity (app that happens to libe in the browser) - spa (React and weep)

For a very strong assertion he makes (even if you need spa, react is obsolete), he dismisses finding a good alternative as an exercise to the reader. The ones listed offhandedly in a side note look all the same (as react) to me.

Re: If not React, then what?

#98

Post by baobabKoodaa »

quantadev wrote: post #20

The people who don't think React (or Vue) is important are the same ones who have never worked on a large project with lots of screen updates and state changes that absolutely cannot be avoided. React is still #1 in popularity, and the most crucial tool for almost any web developer (aside from using TypeScript, instead of plain JS which is also critical for large projects) React is reported to be used by 39.5% of dev…

> React is reported to be used by 39.5% of developers worldwide, while Vue.js is at 15.4%. The number of "apps" using just HTML+CSS is precisely zero, because those aren't "apps" they're documents.

The options you present are: "either use a JS framework or don't use JavaScript at all". That's a false dichotomy. I've built plenty of interactive apps with JavaScript without using frameworks.

Re: If not React, then what?

#99

Post by baobabKoodaa »

thepasswordis wrote: post #10
QuiDortDine wrote: post #7

WOW this is a long article! Still waiting for the substance though... The only point I can agree with is that React is stupidly hard to learn. It feels like a tool made for aliens, though once you master it, it can be pretty efficient. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the JS-free web isn't coming back. And if you're using modern JS, you might as well use React (or a similar tool). The user won't be able to tel…

What do you find hard to learn about react? I think a lot of tutorials are really bad, might be the problem.

Not parent, but I'll answer anyway: React was much much easier to learn back when Class Components were the thing. Nowadays there is layers upon layers of magic like Functional Components with State from Hooks.

Re: If not React, then what?

#100

Post by QuiDortDine »

dottjt wrote: post #35
QuiDortDine wrote: post #7

WOW this is a long article! Still waiting for the substance though... The only point I can agree with is that React is stupidly hard to learn. It feels like a tool made for aliens, though once you master it, it can be pretty efficient. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the JS-free web isn't coming back. And if you're using modern JS, you might as well use React (or a similar tool). The user won't be able to tel…

As someone who's been doing React since the beginning, I would agree that it's hard starting out. However, I think any new paradigm is difficult starting out. Recently I've been learning OO for work and I've been finding it stupidly hard and entirely unintuitive.

I have no doubt React is easy if you've been there from the beginning. But if you learned it last year like me, you got to find out the hard way that things are done slightly differently in each version, introducing breaking changes which invalidate the vast majority of the documentation you can find (which you need because the official docs is absolute crap for beginners, as it assumes you already know React's paradigms).
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