Please just try HTMX

If you never seen HTMX it is a small js library that lets you swap some part of your dom with the responses from your webserver.

This means that in theory you (as a dev) don't need (to write any) js, nor do your users need to download a full page (for any interaction) like it's 1999. Your webserver replies with fully server-renderd HTML but just for the dom node (say a div) that you want to replace.

It's fun for very simple things, even great for extremely simple interactions modes. For interactive products, anything beyond simple CRUDs, it's madness.

Whenever you want to sprinkle a tiny bit of interactivity you'll have to choose between the path of least resistance (a small hack on HTMX) or a proper way. State management gets out of control real fast, it's the opposite of UI=f(state).

I've seen it go bad, then worse with alpine-js, and then completely ripped in favor of something where people can let the browser do browser things.

[edit for clarity]

> We're very close to invokers being baseline

Well why not have the benefits of invokers, but today - with HTMX?

HTMX could eventually switch its implementation to use invokers under the hood in the future, and you'd have the convenience of using declarative behaviors on your buttons, today.

> autocomplete can actually be fulfilled with a datalist element

I wish that the spec would cover more use cases, but last time I tried to use it, I couldn't, because it has really bad UX, and is inconsistent across browsers.

Also, like you mentioned, it only works for small data sets that you can deliver with the initial HTML, not large amounts of data which reside on the server.

You could argue that these are use cases where you wouldn't require an auto-complete in the first place, because the data set is too small.

even for "downloads 2MB of JavaScript", it is often simply because the site is badly written (e.g. not careful about managing dependency), not necessarily because "JAVASCRIPT BAD".

Just look at the source code of amazon.com. It's a mess. But I bet it is more of an organizational problem than a tech stack problem, for a website worked on by literally hundreds of teams (if not more) where everyone crams their little feature in the website home page

I would even say that even "just html" is enough for most website/app. We've been using "just html" at my company ( rosaly.com) for 5 years, we've raised 10 million, have hundreds of customer, and nobody ever complained. And the Android/Ios applications are 234 lines of React-Native which is just embedding a webview , a bit of error screen when there's no internet connection , and intercom library for notification.

Hey, I created htmx and while I appreciate the publicity, I’m not a huge fan of these types of hyperbolic articles. There are lots of different ways to build web apps with their own strengths and weaknesses. I try to assess htmx’s strengths and weaknesses here:

https://htmx.org/essays/when-to-use-hypermedia/

Also, please try unpoly:

https://unpoly.com/

It’s another excellent hypermedia oriented library

Edit: the article is actually not nearly as unreasonable as I thought based on the just-f*king-use template. Still prefer a chill vibe for htmx though.