I don't know if the author is experienced or not. But something I do know, is that the more experience I get, the more I fear dependencies and the more I value

I don't know if the author is experienced or not. But something I do know, is that the more experience I get, the more I fear dependencies and the more I value simplicity. HN is a simple website. I'm glad that they decided to keep the code simple as well. I love the fact that the code almost fits in a single screen. Zero dependencies. You can understand the entire code in a few minutes. I think new developers greatly underestimate the negative impact of dependencies. Today, something like create-react-app downloads hundreds of megabytes of dependencies. Libraries, transpilers, compiler extensions, and various tooling. Of course all those things come with many advantages, but what most people miss is the huge cost of all that. The increased complexity introduced by dependencies. The unnecessary bloat. Sure, the way you name your variables have an impact on readability. But it's nothing compared to adding thousands of dependencies to your project.