Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar?

#11

Post by vectorpush » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

speg wrote: post #6

sedeki wrote: post #2

Angular is over-engineered and I doubt what they are doing is the right way to go. React, on the other hand, simplifies the stack a lot actually. I don't think we will seriously find a consensus until we get WebAssembly.

Is WebAssembly going to solve anything though? Most of what I've read about it is that it will be an accessory to JavaScript. Things like databases, video encoding, 3D rendering, etc.. Will we really be interfacing with the DOM APIs in C? Even if that is how it plays out, we'll still have a dozen frameworks to decided between, at least one for every language that targets WebAssembly.

Yeah. I suspect we'll see things get even more complex as an explosion of old and new languages begin to target wasm, but at the same time we'll probably get better solutions since we won't need to rely on transpilers and hacks to work around the limitations of JavaScript as a language.

Re: Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar?

#12

Post by nogenhat » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 11:56 PM UTC

jonesb6 wrote: post #7

Is code valuable because of conciseness, clarity, and speed, or because it can provide business value that can be monetized? The prevalence of Angular and React would suggest it does indeed provide the latter and that the latter is more valuable to many companies.

IMHO there is always a balance of power, in abstract world the code by itself without business or academical value have no sense.

Asking to your topic: >conciseness, clarity, and speed.

Clarity, conciseness and simplicity is matter. I mean it all that matter in the code, but in our world, in normal one, there not all topic. Sometime is good to agree with bad architecture decision or with lack of clarity of code, cause there is importance to release a feature, cause that sales person deponds on you, you need to make a revenue, etc.

but, what i tried to say, but cause thats my english is not native language, is not the same thing.

I was thinking that most of frontend world current steps is completely wrong, its brings only: complexity, unmaintable piech of crap. that you need to know 100s libraries like left-pad, and that you need to follow last trends not in technology but in frameworks, instead of doing some great UI/UX experience fast and easy maintainable one.

Re: Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar?

#13

Post by jonesb6 » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 1:35 AM UTC

nogenhat wrote: post #12

jonesb6 wrote: post #7

Is code valuable because of conciseness, clarity, and speed, or because it can provide business value that can be monetized? The prevalence of Angular and React would suggest it does indeed provide the latter and that the latter is more valuable to many companies.

IMHO there is always a balance of power, in abstract world the code by itself without business or academical value have no sense. Asking to your topic: >conciseness, clarity, and speed. Clarity, conciseness and simplicity is matter. I mean it all that matter in the code, but in our world, in normal one, there not all topic. Sometime is good to agree with bad architecture decision or with lack of clarity of code, caus…

Like most things the answer isn't one or the other. The answer is a compromise based on the situation at hand.

Sometimes Angular (or any other SPA framework) is the right choice, sometimes it is not.

And if it means anything, I agree with you. I think the internet could use less SPAs. Developers aren't some super evolved subset of humanity, we get seduced by shiny new toys (in the form of libraries, frameworks, etc) just like anybody else.

Re: Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar?

#14

Post by rpedela » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 5:18 AM UTC

For me, using React makes it possible to write UI code like I am writing UI code for the desktop (e.g. .NET). When I first saw it my reaction was "Finally! I can stop pulling my hair out!". And the more I use it, the more I like it. I am working on a highly dynamic UI right now that I started building with Knockout, got pissed off, tried React, and haven't looked back.

React really is different than everything else that has come before. I don't know if React will be the final, new framework most developers use. But whatever is the final framework will almost certainly borrow many of React's ideas.

Re: Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar?

#15

Post by plugnburn » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 1:40 PM UTC

Speaking of React/Angular - they are obsessed because they never used 10-years-old computers and slow Internet connection and don't actually know how users feel when their weak machines are thrown all that stuff at.

I'm not against new concepts. Client-side rendering is awesome, reactivity is awesome. But I'm against all that bloatware. If a new concept can't be implemented without bloatware (hint: it can), we don't really need it.

But these things can and should be done in a different way. For example, all my JS stack (Z5 + DaBi) targets ES5 and is under 4 KB altogether. Yet it provides:

- DOM manipulation and auto-polyfilling some DOM essentials (only for the stuff that's really uncomfortable to do with native APIs - Q.js);

- reactive in-memory storage (with an ability to easily populate from external objects or remote requests - Zen.js);

- easy data-to-DOM and DOM-to-data binding (DaBi library);

- ability to easily build DOM and CSS styles from JS native constructs (XT.js and XS.js - never go through escaping hell again);

- client-side routing (R.js).

And while I agree that React/Angular are the bloatware (even jQuery is), I disagree that server-side rendering is any better and that throwing in another bloatware like ClojureScript would solve this issue. Like I had said in my article about client-side development (http://clientside.surge.sh/), go native or go home.

Re: Why so many front end developers obsessed with React/Angluar?

#16

Post by arms » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

There are a bunch of factors in play here, but I'd guess that the reasons are mainly two-fold: a) developers like shiny new things (myself included) and b) Angular and React offer opinions on how to build front-end apps, which can be very hard.

Angular and Ember never quite did it for me. I don't agree with all the design decisions they've made. I do however enjoy using React a lot. It fits my mental model much better when it comes to building front-end apps. It's simple to learn, focuses on building modular components and I really like how it manages state (either via components or Flux/Redux.) That said, it's not something I use for every project. But I had something that just wouldn't work as a traditional server-side rendered project and React was a godsend.

I'm hopeful that ClojureScript continues to gain traction and improved tooling. I really like the language, and feel that it offers enough to replace JS for most of my needs. I've played with Reagent and _really_ liked what I saw there.