Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is, that JS, CSD and HTML are evolving. They now offer way more than they used to. We can do so much with HTML 5 and CSS 3 already. The argument is to not use React or similar, when a simpler way using standard conform means is available. It is hard to take a comment serious which compares not using React to not being able to do anything productively. It looks like a very junior React-only dev comment.
> We can do so much with HTML 5 and CSS 3 already. The argument is to not use React or similar, when a simpler way using standard conform means is available. There are no simple ways to build UIs available in HTML5 and CSS3. It has neither state handling, nor reactivity, nor any APIs that don't make you tear you hair out (or build another lib/framework). It's a horrendously bad half-low-level half-high-level API with…
If you find yourself wanting to put dialogs on a website, consider showing information in a different way, more appropriate to the web. Work on your assumptions of how things must be done and some problems will disappear without ever having to write gnarly code.
Aside from that, writing a dialog is really not that difficult. I've done that before and I didn't need any framework to do it. Just don't rely on its modality for security, obviously, because one does not rely on frontend code for security anyway. Element zapper will make short work out of any dialog, that tries to block the stuff underneath it.
Ultimately the browser is not the desktop. It has a different use-case. Too many people do not understand this and try to shoehorn things into being "like on the desktop". Write desktop programs, if you want the desktop (not Electron shit ...). Write websites, if you want the web and the browser. Both have their own quirks and complications. Trying to force one into the other will only lead to more complications. Good design pays attention to the medium.