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No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

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Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#21

Post by maelito »

robador wrote: post #14

I think it's great they did what works for them. Personally though, I am starting to believe React, or indeed any reactive framework, is extremely ill suited for most websites. It adds a layer of complexity on many levels that IMHO is not worth the tradeoff. Not only the amount of tooling required (node_modules), also the fact that you're expected to write all your own elements (components) and override default brows…

> If your content is mostly static, just use markup and sprinkle a bit of js on top of you must. Your visitors will be grateful. If you're building a web based application, which you're probably not, use React.

This is solved by React server rendering or RSC, e.g. through Next.

Your visitors will see HTML.

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#22

Post by davnicwil »

robador wrote: post #14

I think it's great they did what works for them. Personally though, I am starting to believe React, or indeed any reactive framework, is extremely ill suited for most websites. It adds a layer of complexity on many levels that IMHO is not worth the tradeoff. Not only the amount of tooling required (node_modules), also the fact that you're expected to write all your own elements (components) and override default brows…

> just use markup and sprinkle a bit of js on top if you must

My perspective is of React as a templating engine for markup that allows you to add behaviour on top as you need. So in a sense, exactly what you've said.

It's good at this because it's all done seamlessly in the same language with hardly any magic or conventions they have invented. It's just javascript. It also has a rendering model that's extremely simple to reason about when updates happen.

You can build something as complicated or as simple as you want with that, of course, but React doesn't care if you do. That's up to you to decide. React can be 'just' a static markup template engine running at build time (my own blog is built this way!), a server-only template engine, little bits of behaviour sprinkled in on the client to isolated parts of the page, all the way up to a full blown client application with an arbitrary level of complexity.

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#23

Post by Brajeshwar »

onion2k wrote: post #20
Brajeshwar wrote: post #5

I'm sorry but you lost me at “Write blog in React.” The art/science and tech of writing should be as decoupled as possible from the tools (CMS, React, etc.) Make people write -- then enable the features, UX, and the other facades of a blog with the tooling -- React, Vue, WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger, and FooBar.

The art/science and tech of writing should be as decoupled as possible from the tools. There is nothing about writing that makes this automatically true, and if you look at some of the software that novelists, editors screenwriters, journalists, technical authors, etc use it doesn't really hold water. For example, Scrivener and Shotrunner are closer to databases than writing tools. Humans have been writing for thousa…

I agree to this perspective too. Screenwriters, novelists, etc. need to keep a tap of the journey, fork, and side stories of characters and entities. The tools help them with that and not with the writing part.

Blog Articles are self-contained in most cases and are within the scope of that blob. So, most tools should be either an enabler in that writing (editors, formatters) or the aftermath -- publishing (most CMSes).

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#24

Post by bilekas »

maelito wrote: post #21
robador wrote: post #14

I think it's great they did what works for them. Personally though, I am starting to believe React, or indeed any reactive framework, is extremely ill suited for most websites. It adds a layer of complexity on many levels that IMHO is not worth the tradeoff. Not only the amount of tooling required (node_modules), also the fact that you're expected to write all your own elements (components) and override default brows…

> If your content is mostly static, just use markup and sprinkle a bit of js on top of you must. Your visitors will be grateful. If you're building a web based application, which you're probably not, use React. This is solved by React server rendering or RSC, e.g. through Next. Your visitors will see HTML.

> This is solved by React server rendering or RSC, e.g. through Next.

You realise that's just HTML with more steps?

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#25

Post by pheatherlite »

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #2

I think being in a position where the person writing the content is comfortable with writing code and/or won't make a mistake that will mess with layout etc is pretty unique. I would imagine that's the most common reason people use a CMS.

Most definitely. There are reasons to reinvent the wheel sometimes, this, however, maybe be a low roi reason...

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#27

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

jawngee wrote: post #7

I don't want to be the jerk in the comments but this seems pretty poorly conceived. * What are you going to do when you hire a non-technical writer down the road? * The handwringing about control over SEO smacks of NIH and makes little sense. It feels like a very thin justification for this weird scheme. * You are a technical company but you couldn't figure out how to apply your look and feel, which isn't unique and…

I'm going to tack onto your comment because my instinct was just to write "oh for pity's sake! :-o"

You've hit the nail on the head. There is IMO some distance between eating your own dog food and NIH, and they have happily traversed that distance without a thought.

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#28

Post by arpa »

archerx wrote: post #13
joostdecock wrote: post #8

From TFA: > My idea was that surely it's possible to write a bunch of markdown, and then have that get wrapped in a bunch of JSX tags that come pre-styled, using the styles of your existing repo? For example, what I expected was to be able to write *test* (Markdown for bold) and then get a component that looked like test where is a library-defined React component It surely is possible, so perhaps I can share some lin…

At that point might as well just write HTMLh instead of writing markdown and making JS convert it to HTML. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills or something.

you are not alone

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#29

Post by austin-cheney »

robador wrote: post #14

I think it's great they did what works for them. Personally though, I am starting to believe React, or indeed any reactive framework, is extremely ill suited for most websites. It adds a layer of complexity on many levels that IMHO is not worth the tradeoff. Not only the amount of tooling required (node_modules), also the fact that you're expected to write all your own elements (components) and override default brows…

Agreed. This a problem that only needs to be solved once. My personal website is an OS like GUI that took a fair amount of effort to extract from an unrelated application, but no greater effort than starting from scratch with something like React. That effort is over and future contributions are now little more than a line of text in the HTML but I get all the flexibility and performance of not using React.

Re: No CMS? Writing Our Blog in React (2023)

#30

Post by gmac »

robador wrote: post #14

I think it's great they did what works for them. Personally though, I am starting to believe React, or indeed any reactive framework, is extremely ill suited for most websites. It adds a layer of complexity on many levels that IMHO is not worth the tradeoff. Not only the amount of tooling required (node_modules), also the fact that you're expected to write all your own elements (components) and override default brows…

I have mixed feelings about React. I like it better than jQuery, and better than most other JS frameworks I’ve used.

But I prefer Mithril (https://mithril.js.org/), which offers the same immediate-mode advantages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19746235) without the crazy-complex dependency-tracking reactivity.

I rather liked this comment on React: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38640051

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