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React Is the New IBM (2023)

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Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#2

Post by smallpipe »

Dismissing a compiler improvement is weird. Facebook has presumably millions of lines of React everywhere. Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy. Usability and familiarity matter. The tech is a collateral of the business, and it doesn't matter as long as it works.

Compiler "hack" or not, the business doesn't care, the business is about revenue and maintenance burden.

Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#3

Post by qsort »

I see the point but I think the article is overplaying its hand.

Sacrificing performance for a cleaner programming model is a reasonable tradeoff, it's weird that it's being criticized as though it were a matter of principle.

I'm very much a backend person and I don't like React either -- as far as I'm concerned raw HTML on a webpage as God intended peak UI -- but if you're writing full webapps you're going to need some form of framework regardless.

Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#4

Post by azangru »

smallpipe wrote: post #2

Dismissing a compiler improvement is weird. Facebook has presumably millions of lines of React everywhere. Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy. Usability and familiarity matter. The tech is a collateral of the business, and it doesn't matter as long as it works. Compiler "hack" or not, the business doesn't care, the business is about revenue and maintenance burden.

> Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy.

I guess the question we typically get to ask ourselves is this: is there any good reason to choose React for a new project in .

Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#5

Post by pavlov »

The data to support the argument looks very weak.

There's a graph showing JavaScript execution time for "sites with JQuery" and "sites with React". With no further context about what kind of sites these are, the comparison is useless. It's like sampling binaries found on your local OS to count the number of machine code instructions per binary, then concluding that certain subdirectories are more efficient than others. "We found that you should put your code in /usr/bin to make it run faster."

Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#6

Post by patwolf »

> Like IBM, React will one day lose its crown by virtue of its own mass and inability to innovate towards better solutions.

I always thought one of the complaints of React was that they innovated too much. Things like Hooks and Server Components and Fiber were controversial, but seemed like radical attempts at innovation.

What kind of things are other frameworks doing to out-innovate React such that React won't be able to keep up?

Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#9

Post by phpnode »

azangru wrote: post #4
smallpipe wrote: post #2

Dismissing a compiler improvement is weird. Facebook has presumably millions of lines of React everywhere. Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy. Usability and familiarity matter. The tech is a collateral of the business, and it doesn't matter as long as it works. Compiler "hack" or not, the business doesn't care, the business is about revenue and maintenance burden.

> Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy. I guess the question we typically get to ask ourselves is this: is there any good reason to choose React for a new project in .

sure:

- Everyone knows it.

- It's easy to hire for.

- It's good enough and getting better.

- There's a rich ecosystem and a wealth of libraries.

Re: React Is the New IBM (2023)

#10

Post by cduzz »

I think this is a misunderstanding of the "nobody ever got fired for using tech stack X"

The background is something like:

  1. I'm a profitable (or governmental) organization
  2. I'm doing a thing in a critical part of my enterprise
  3. That thing is not seen by stakeholders as a core business competency
So examples might be the computer network of a hospital or inventory management for a manufacturer.

The "build / buy" is more "I want to give someone money who will make my problem go away."

And with a sufficiently large organization even ordinary problems potentially turn into complex problems, so when you find an organization to give money to to make the problem go away, you want an organization that can make all of the problem go away even if it means spending a lot of money.

IBM (and microsoft / cisco, oracle, amazon, and a pretty small number of other players) can all cash the "give me money and I will solve all your problems" check.

(edited for formatting)

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