Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

clairefro.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 192 posts

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#131

Post by gibbitz »

revskill wrote: post #65
yoavm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but it's so rare nowadays though. I still remember when I saw a junior frontend dev struggling to get some element to look differently when hovered in React. They went though loops and hoops to style it using CSS-in-JS and mousemove, only because they didn't hear about :hover.

Then what ? That junior dev could produce working software, and fix the css issue later (if needed). Give that "senior CSS developer" a day and figure out how to manage state, then what you get is a crap.

Business doesn't fund "fix it later" -- it just becomes tech debt. You have to push to do it right the first time or approve merges you can live with in perpetuity.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#132

Post by syntheweave »

majesticglue wrote: post #129
c-hendricks wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's space between "read this giant c++ tome" and "you're good to go with a couple of months of React", quite a lot even. From my experience with bootcamp people, it leaves them woefully underprepared. But my sample size is small: 3 people, 3 separate bootcamps, similar results. They knew one portion of react, no fundamentals. And sadly a couple of them really took to using Copilot. So they don't know how to do wh…

definitely. I just think for some, bottoms up learning has quite some disadvantages and was an approach that I've used for a long time with okay results. It would get me to where I wanted to be...but it takes way too long sometimes. Of course there are people like you mentioned though who only do top down learning but just never go into learning the fundamentals ever, which is another problem in its own right.

I've gradually taken towards "always learn as if it's a sport" as the approach to learning. Which, if you look at the sports science recommendations is:

* Isolate highly specific techniques into drills.

* Then go directly to practicing live gameplay. Ignore intermediate exercises.

And the approach with programming can, in fact, do this, if presented properly: definitely, we know how to isolate things into short follow-along examples. What tends to be missing is the "live gameplay" element, because it's hard to set up sample projects that are complex enough to reveal the need for a particular technique.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#133

Post by Spivak »

carlossouza wrote: post #17

> I became a dev when everyone was hiring for React, so React is what I taught myself immediately after bootcamp in the scramble for a job A better education path (in a bootcamp, university, book, youtube, whatever) would start with the fundamentals and build it from the ground up... not the other way around. (I just realized how lucky I am for being taught in the best possible order, from the ground up... first the…

I don't know anyone who has ever learned programming bottom up. Now growing with the technology as it evolves is one thing, but being taught in that manner is miserable because it's unmotivated and the reason for the low level is the high level not the other way around. You just use even handlers in JS and then when you hit some confusing behavior you dive in at learn about how event propagation works.

Nobody learns block how devices work before filesystems because it's backwards. Filesystems are the motivation, block devices are a means. The processors course in college comes after the intro programming and after systems programming.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#134

Post by ehnto »

codethief wrote: post #44
arrowsmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need JSX for a static website? If you need JS then it's not "static".

You're missing OP's point. The website can be fully static (even without any JS) but you could still use JSX/React to generate it (during build time, not runtime). If you've ever had to build a static website from scratch, with the same navigation, footer etc. on each page , and without using frames, then you'll appreciate the amount of work that a templating engine saves you (whether JS-based or else).

I think you all missed GPs point, JS is barely required, let alone an SPA framework, let alone static generation in an SPA framework, etc.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#135

Post by willsmith72 »

sfn42 wrote: post #125
willsmith72 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes work to keep up with the latest-and-greatest in modern web frameworks. 100% agree. But if you're already doing that, because you work in the field, or are passionate about it, then that checkbox is ticked. I wouldn't do all that JUST to build a static portfolio, but if you already learnt and kept up with all of that stuff, then I still don't see why not use it.

Because in a professional setting the guy who takes over after you also has to know or learn whatever tech you chose. I worked on a team maintaining solutions in React, Vue, angular, Svelte, JQuery and more. It sucked. Basically every task I ever did there was my first time doing that thing with that framework.

I totally agree, simpler is better. Except for extenuating circumstances, teams working anywhere remotely close to each other should aim to stick to the same technologies and practices. If that's vanilla js, sure, go for it.

I'm not arguing everyone needs to move to react. I'm saying the opposite. Stick to the tools you know. I once worked in a strict java-angular.js shop, and it was awesome. Everyone was familiar with the tech and the company saved energy otherwise wasted on tool-related decisions.

My point is this

> it is more of a flex in this SPA era to show you know how to make a website the old-fashioned way.

is not valuable to me at all. If I were giving advice to a new programmer, I'd tell them learn the basics first, like your html, js, css, and then familiarise yourself with one of the frameworks. Then if you want to build your portfolio, build it in whatever you like, but for people at that level, it can be a great chance to practice and show off their skills to employers. If you're shipping 2MB, who cares.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#136

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

JohnFen wrote: post #9

I think this is a pretty awesome statement. I'm always unreasonably pleased when I see a web page that embraces appropriate simplicity. > Coding a basic vanilla multi-page application (MPA) saves time in development (goodbye babel/postcss/SSR config) and builds are fast (this site builds in less than 1.2 seconds). I'd hope that builds would be on the order of a small pile of milliseconds! (or zero: a site like that c…

Is it even correct to automatically update the year? Shouldn't the year be whenever the work was created or revised? Which could be set at build time.

Another advantage of setting it in the build is it'd show even without javascript. If I disable JS, no copyright statement at all appears on the page. So if it was really necessary to declare your copyright, then would it mean anyone who disables JS can freely infringe?

I agree just leaving the copyright out of the footer would be best.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#137

Post by microflash »

I'm glad this works for them. Personal websites and portfolios are a reflection of people on their journey. If it is built with React, maybe they are learning React. If it is vanilla JS, maybe they appreciate the flavor of vanilla.

Instead of making sweeping statements about the choice of stack, I appreciate that someone took their time and built something of their own. Congrats. Next thing they should do is an accessibility audit and learn from it.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#138

Post by adregan »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #136
JohnFen wrote: post #9

I think this is a pretty awesome statement. I'm always unreasonably pleased when I see a web page that embraces appropriate simplicity. > Coding a basic vanilla multi-page application (MPA) saves time in development (goodbye babel/postcss/SSR config) and builds are fast (this site builds in less than 1.2 seconds). I'd hope that builds would be on the order of a small pile of milliseconds! (or zero: a site like that c…

Is it even correct to automatically update the year? Shouldn't the year be whenever the work was created or revised? Which could be set at build time. Another advantage of setting it in the build is it'd show even without javascript. If I disable JS, no copyright statement at all appears on the page. So if it was really necessary to declare your copyright, then would it mean anyone who disables JS can freely infringe…

I am of the opinion that what you are suggesting is correct. You don’t want a programmatic copyright because you want the copyright to reflect the date created as that when the right begins, and it continues from there without need for refreshing.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#139

Post by c-hendricks »

ehnto wrote: post #134
codethief wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing OP's point. The website can be fully static (even without any JS) but you could still use JSX/React to generate it (during build time, not runtime). If you've ever had to build a static website from scratch, with the same navigation, footer etc. on each page , and without using frames, then you'll appreciate the amount of work that a templating engine saves you (whether JS-based or else).

I think you all missed GPs point, JS is barely required, let alone an SPA framework, let alone static generation in an SPA framework, etc.

And you're missing the other GPs point. Even when building a static website, you might want to reuse components. Or use shared components. Or do some logic. Or easily compose things.

Note they said "JSX as a templating language". Why worsen the experience using Python + Jinja when you're just building a static site.

Re: Look ma, no React: I recoded my portfolio site with vanilla everything

#140

Post by terminatornet »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #136
JohnFen wrote: post #9

I think this is a pretty awesome statement. I'm always unreasonably pleased when I see a web page that embraces appropriate simplicity. > Coding a basic vanilla multi-page application (MPA) saves time in development (goodbye babel/postcss/SSR config) and builds are fast (this site builds in less than 1.2 seconds). I'd hope that builds would be on the order of a small pile of milliseconds! (or zero: a site like that c…

Is it even correct to automatically update the year? Shouldn't the year be whenever the work was created or revised? Which could be set at build time. Another advantage of setting it in the build is it'd show even without javascript. If I disable JS, no copyright statement at all appears on the page. So if it was really necessary to declare your copyright, then would it mean anyone who disables JS can freely infringe…

I think it's also incorrect because it's getting the date client side. so it would just display the local client's year, not necessarily the correct one.
Post reply on HN