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React is winning by default and slowing innovation

lorenstew.art

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Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#451

Post by spankalee »

IceDane wrote: post #414
spankalee wrote: post #157

Web components are the way out of this trap. Every single framework that isn't React should be wholeheartedly supporting web components to make sure that they have access to a viable ecosystem of components and utilities without having to bootstrap an entire competitor to React and it's ecosystem. While a lot of people view web components as competitors to frameworks, they don't really have to be. The just define an…

I'm wholly convinced that only people who have never tried to use web components for anything serious, and/or have basically no experience with web dev, are the only ones will make this argument. For example, a guy I know online who is an argumentative, boring backend dev that regularly has really bad and uninformed takes on things he has very limited experience with, he recently said he prefers web components. For a…

I have worked on several serious projects with web components, and I work closely with the teams building projects like Photoshop for the web, Reddit, Chrome UI, and Internet Archive. Are those serious enough?

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#452

Post by spankalee »

TehShrike wrote: post #357
spankalee wrote: post #157

Web components are the way out of this trap. Every single framework that isn't React should be wholeheartedly supporting web components to make sure that they have access to a viable ecosystem of components and utilities without having to bootstrap an entire competitor to React and it's ecosystem. While a lot of people view web components as competitors to frameworks, they don't really have to be. The just define an…

I worked on a business app made with lit web components and all properties being stringly typed was a real drag. It didn't compare to a realtime-first component library.

I don't understand thinking that properties had to be strings. Did you just refuse to use property bindings or what?

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#453

Post by uoaei »

Narew wrote: post #439

I'm not a front end dev and only use JS stuff time to time for small personal project. There is so much JS framework out there that appear and disappear so fast. I don't know if we can call it innovation. I have the impression they just reinvent the wheel with so little value added. I prefer to keep on React at least it will not disappear the next time I will do some change on my project.

My pet theory is that frontend devs have so little on the critical path, and are usually overqualified for the kind of work they do, that they keep reinventing these interesting paradigms for managing state in GUIs basically just so they can keep themselves entertained.

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#454

Post by nrawe »

actinium226 wrote: post #379
whoknowsidont wrote: post #341

React isn't winning by default. It's been so effective, so well designed that it's lived long enough to become the defacto standard... and the villian. Claiming React is slowing innovation is an absolutely bonkers take when React is essentially the only sane stable choice in a sea of "me too" frameworks and libraries with conflicting and confusing design choices.

I humbly disagree. I've never built a highly interactive application with React, only simple sites where the guys before me chose React, so I can't speak to its relative strengths or weaknesses there, but I've found that it doesn't scale down very well to simple sites. For a simple sign-in page, it's easy to just store state in the DOM and use a element to send the credentials, and maybe a little JS for the password…

I think you hit the nail on the head: React is a good fit for certain solutions (like interactivity rich web applications), while not a good fit for others (like adding minor interactivity into a form). There are trade offs to React vs Vue vs Angular vs Vanilla and which is best is contextual to the problem you are solving, rather than a more moralistic "X is THE winner" stance.

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#455

Post by whatevaa »

actinium226 wrote: post #379
whoknowsidont wrote: post #341

React isn't winning by default. It's been so effective, so well designed that it's lived long enough to become the defacto standard... and the villian. Claiming React is slowing innovation is an absolutely bonkers take when React is essentially the only sane stable choice in a sea of "me too" frameworks and libraries with conflicting and confusing design choices.

I humbly disagree. I've never built a highly interactive application with React, only simple sites where the guys before me chose React, so I can't speak to its relative strengths or weaknesses there, but I've found that it doesn't scale down very well to simple sites. For a simple sign-in page, it's easy to just store state in the DOM and use a element to send the credentials, and maybe a little JS for the password…

You shouldn't use any js framework for simple sites.

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#456

Post by whstl »

uoaei wrote: post #453
Narew wrote: post #439

I'm not a front end dev and only use JS stuff time to time for small personal project. There is so much JS framework out there that appear and disappear so fast. I don't know if we can call it innovation. I have the impression they just reinvent the wheel with so little value added. I prefer to keep on React at least it will not disappear the next time I will do some change on my project.

My pet theory is that frontend devs have so little on the critical path, and are usually overqualified for the kind of work they do, that they keep reinventing these interesting paradigms for managing state in GUIs basically just so they can keep themselves entertained.

I suspect it’s bimodal.

There’s lots of people able to work anywhere on the stack but choose to work on the frontend because they feel super-productive compared to others. They can switch between frameworks and even come up with new ideas.

On the other side, there’s way too many frontend engineers that can barely write tests, have extremely little ability with the visual part, have never setup a new project, but are still getting super small things done.

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#457

Post by whstl »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #341

React isn't winning by default. It's been so effective, so well designed that it's lived long enough to become the defacto standard... and the villian. Claiming React is slowing innovation is an absolutely bonkers take when React is essentially the only sane stable choice in a sea of "me too" frameworks and libraries with conflicting and confusing design choices.

I don’t see why something being good means it can’t also be stopping innovation.

This feels like a misattribution, due to halo effect.

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#459

Post by la_oveja »

spanishgum wrote: post #378
gitaarik wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React was innovative when it just appeared 12 years ago. But a few years after there were already many other frameworks doing similar things. And since then it has been good enough, but not the leading innovative frontend framework anymore. React has rather matured in dealing with it's own outdated Virtual DOM design, making it much more boiler platy than modern alternatives.

What metric would you use to define the leading frontend framework, and what is it? I'm familiar enough with Angular, React, Flutter, Vue, and Svelte as big names in the ecosystem, but have really only done scrappy development with React and not much with the others. Google trends seems to show React is still a leader [1], and React has more than double the amount of Github stars than any of the others I've mentioned…

why the sudden angular rise last month?

Re: React is winning by default and slowing innovation

#460

Post by gitaarik »

tshaddox wrote: post #87

This is mostly just a complaint about how good React is. It's so good that it's difficult for the technical benefits of alternatives to outweigh the social benefits of choosing React. Note that this is neither a major compliment to React's technical merits nor a criticism of React's competitors. In fact, I don't even disagree with the author on some of his claims, such as: > React is no longer winning by technical me…

I think it's a bit of both. React introduced component based programming, wich was great. This was copied by many frameworks. But React held the first position because of it's strong base, and because it was just very nice and good in general for a long time in the first years of React, 12 years ago.

But React has kept hold to the virtual DOM and JSX for over those 12 years. While other frameworks have created more innovative rendering mechanisms, resulting in faster rendering times with simpler code.

So for the seasoned FE developer, they know there is better out there, but 9/10 jobs ask for React. And people don't seem to be interested in trying out some technology that is actually easier to use and results in a better end product. Because they are not familiar with the name, and they don't know anybody that made money with that, so better safe than sorry.

So, React has been great, but by now it's a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes.

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