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Next.js is infuriating

blog.meca.sh

321–330 of 602 posts

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#321

I 100% agree. I've ran into the same issues, and I would never use Next.js for anything, and I will encourage every team at work to use something else. In general Next.js has so many layers of abstraction that 99.9999% of projects don't need. And the ones that do are probably better off building a bespoke solution from lower level parts. Next.js is easily the worst technology I've ever used.

I needed to move something. By a few pixels. I spent about 4 hours learning about hydration and somewhere in my source there's a note about why I can't move the thing and how I'm working around it.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#322
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second worst for me. I’ve used Sharepoint.

Third worst if you have used Lotus Notes mail. I still don't understand how an email and calendar client can slow down a computer like that (going by memory, the last time I used it was at work in 2013 so pre-SSD days).

Everyone at IBM when I worked where used Fetchnotes (internal tool that leaked onto the internet that wraps Lotus notes .so file and allows you to use normal email / contact / calendaring programs and formats).

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#323

I was about to start a new project with Next.js... is anyone willing to give me some advice? I'm about to start building an e-commerce site (30-50k poster print designs, i.e. no inventory), and was leaning towards a Django backend (because I know it) and... some sort of SSR frontend. I'm not really a frontend guy, but taking this as an opportunity to learn it. This article obviously does not inspire confidence in me…

For awareness, if you want to build a SSG/SSR frontend, there's also [Astro]( https://astro.build/ ) It lets you ship client islands to the client, which AFAIK is essentially partial hydration.

You can make islands with pretty much any JS framework or even none e.g. Web Components

Katie Sylor-Miller named them when she was at Etsy and from memory they were React components in a PHP page to start

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The train of thought is “what is everyone using? I’ll use that too”

If everyone made decisions for themselves instead of following everyone else we’d be so much better off, in all areas.

This is a little disingenuous because unfortunately you can't make decisions on technical merits alone. It takes a lot of resources to keep these projects thriving and up to date. You almost have to go with options where these resources have been deployed, even if they are terrible sometimes.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#326
NextJS as a framework is pretty good, it has gone downhill since the whole RSC shift sure but its still pretty good for most use cases. The problem however is Vercel and how closely its tied to Vercel.

I recently developed a small internal application in NextJS and we are using Azure PostgreSQL, we are on the Pro Plan from Vercel (honestly even that's an overkill, our use case would be satisfied easily on the free plan; which is very very generous) but one problem I faced is a NextJS App hosted on Vercel, it will never have a static fixed IP, so we couldn't directly access our database unless ofc we opened it to the entire world, which is never an option. This is so dumb honestly, the audacity to call it a full stack framework is stunning.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#327
post #85

I was about to start a new project with Next.js... is anyone willing to give me some advice? I'm about to start building an e-commerce site (30-50k poster print designs, i.e. no inventory), and was leaning towards a Django backend (because I know it) and... some sort of SSR frontend. I'm not really a frontend guy, but taking this as an opportunity to learn it. This article obviously does not inspire confidence in me…

In my opinion (9 years FE exp) you should build your ecommerce site in shopify or wordpress + woocommerce or some other off the shelf tool. It will be up before the evening's out and you won't be spending that much extra than you would have anyway, and everything will Just Work (tm) and look pretty good (chuck out 50$ for a nice wordpress theme and you're golden). If you insist on rolling your own, Django + templates…

Or use PayloadCMS, which is Next but at least you don't need to deal with WordPress.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#329
post #305
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working with a client just last month that hired an African engineering group to build a tool for them. What they got delivered was a Next.js train wreck that was so coupled to Vercel's hosting that I couldn't make it run successfully anywhere else. The customer was a non-profit and didn't want to/couldn't afford Vercel's hosting so asked if I could try and make it run and I (naively) thought 'its just javascript, it…

I haven't heard anything about trends, stereotypes, positives, and negatives regarding IT and development in Africa. Following HN's guideline to increase curiosity as topics get more divisive (as this subthread has), and looking for "the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says" I'm going to assume the best: What's the story here? I assume this group was chosen for a reason and didn't meet expectations…

The non-profit works in Africa and is all about using local resources when at all possible. They knew some people that worked with a group out of Nairobi that talked a good game and they liked the people they met and the non-profit folks are NOT technical, they jumped on it. It's a classic story really--I've been on this side of the table many times before with outsourced work.

If they had brought me in before hand I could have saved them a lot of work by asking the hard questions and reigning in the tech overspend.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#330
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was running when they accepted it. However they didn't realize that the group was running the Django/Postgres 'backend' on a managed Digital Ocean instance, then there were two different Vercel 'projects'. It was costing hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month to run for a project that was VERY lightly used. They paid them on the strength of seeing it working, but then the consulting group basically ghosted when…

Damn, what a horror story

I felt really bad for them. They're super nice people and I don't think the contractors set out to take advantage of them, it ended up being an bad experience for everyone.
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