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Next.js is infuriating

blog.meca.sh

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Re: Next.js is infuriating

#451
post #447

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> Seems more like a test on random React minutiae. It is more like test on whether or not you can figure out random React minutiae (with Google/ChatGPT, if needed) when presented with a need. Which isn't a bad approximation for how well you will do at finding any random minutiae as needs present themselves. React-based development doesn't require much original thought — the vast majority of the job really is just fig…

I was assuming that particular interview was not open ChatGPT. If all you want to test for is can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, type that into ChatGPT, and then read it to me, yeah, it seems fine.

Why would one random part of the interview disallow ChatGPT when it is otherwise accepted for answering other random React minutiae?

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#452

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Why? Microsoft's GUI framework as well as Apple's covered plenty of use cases before the rise of the web browser.

Then why did HTML became so popular if win32 or MFC were so great?

Because it solved different problems. CSS is terrible, but deployment simplicity and distribution channel were more powerful than how shitty HTML is for making GUIs. The fact that MFC was owned by Microsoft didn't help either.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#453

When I first saw Next.js I was immediatelly reminded of Meteor.js. I did invest a bit in learning into it and did some personal projects. But quickly realized it was both over-abstracted and inflexible which made it really hard to get it past prototypes. But these solutions keep coming up because they bring one thing: Self-contained / "batteries included". Just the other day there was a thread in hackernews about Lar…

Thing is I'm spoilt by asp.net, which has so much bad 'stigma' in the (esp startup) dev community but it is _extremely_ well designed. You get a very batteries included approach(es) but you can always punch out of it and override it. I've never got into a situation where I'm feeling like I'm fighting the framework. I also really like both Blazor Server and Blazor Webasm which allows you to write the frontend in C# to…

Blazor is not good at anything. Please stick with JS for the frontend .NET devs. You'll thank me later.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#454
post #148

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First off, since the sentiment here is really negative, I'd like to say that next.js is actually really good for what it does. You've done a great job at building the software that powers millions of websites at this point. I think a big part of the negative sentiment derives from the fact that detailed documentation and reference documentation almost non-existant. The documentation mostly tells you what exists, but…

Don't you find it problematic, as a framework that's 8 years old to already have reached version 15.x? Assuming they follow semantic versioning and those are 15 different backwards incompatible upgrades?

I haven't used next.js but it looks like they have mostly automatic/codemod migrations

`npx @next/codemod@canary upgrade latest`

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#455

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I can’t help but feel some of these decisions are made because it’s what is best for Vercel and not what’s best for the framework.

I don't see how this particular case makes anything better or worse for Vercel. It's just a poor developer experience to need to come up with your own composeMiddlewares function (or find one of the many that people have posted in various threads).

They validated this on the thread. They made an architectural decision to run middleware only on edge.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#456
post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was assuming that particular interview was not open ChatGPT. If all you want to test for is can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, type that into ChatGPT, and then read it to me, yeah, it seems fine.

Why would one random part of the interview disallow ChatGPT when it is otherwise accepted for answering other random React minutiae?

Because humans have to interact with other humans in conversations, and if you can't read social cues as to when something is and isn't acceptable, you're boned. I have trouble with that, so it's not surprising to me when others do as well.

When you're in a work meeting, do you just put ChatGPT up on one laptop and Claude on another and just sit back for 30 minutes to an hour?

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#457
Middleware abstractions are challenging because third party libraries tend to abuse it and that can cause performance issues. Also, Vercel has optimized the middleware for its cloud business which includes various optimizations.

I don't see this as a major problem, since there are so many ways to work around it if you really don't like the tradeoffs.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#458

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I've been running a SaaS on Next.js + GraphQL for 4.5 years now, sticking to Pages router has eliminated most of the complexity. I recently rewrote my auth to use better-auth (as a separate service), which has allowed me to start moving entirely off Next.js (looking at either React Router 7 or Tanstack Router). Back when I started, Next.js made server side rendering incredibly easy, but it turns out I didn't need it.…

Why're trying to move off next? What makes the opportunity cost worth it?

Looking for full control over where the frontend is hosted. Sure, I can run Next.js elsewhere, but I could also run React Router elsewhere and have a much better overall experience in the process.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#459

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Probably because the standard way of writing C# is too OOP-ish (for lack of a better term). Typescript lets you write just usual functions handling mostly typed objects, which is about as much abstraction as most people want (except for 1-2 classes for stuff like `BTree`), and as much typing as most people want.

It's more likely they never tried C#, but have a very strong negative bias towards it nevertheless. C# can also be written very functional if you want, it's a multi-paradigm language like Typescript itself.

Of course it _can_ be. But that's not how major libraries are structured. Which defines how majority of business apps are structured. The way majority of folks use a language defines the language in its entirety, doesn't matter if theres a kitchen sink of alternative paradigms. You can't argue that C# isn't enterprisey in the majority case. In JS you can build on top of a whole, extremely popular library ecosystem purely using functions and options objects.

Re: Next.js is infuriating

#460

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What did you use instead?

Not OP but FYI React Router v7 (fka "Remix") has all the key features of Next.js but none of the bloat or Vercel-driven enshittification.

Except when they ship v8 and you'll be forced to restructure your app to the whims of the library creators in case you need to update.
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