You do need frameworks, but you don't need big fat frameworks that completely change the programming model and require you to learn its own incantations, ritual

You do need frameworks, but you don't need big fat frameworks that completely change the programming model and require you to learn its own incantations, rituals and ceremony. React is one such beast. React is only useful if you need to incrementally update complex screens, because simple screens can be re-rendered completely and no one will know the difference. Very few applications need to incrementally update complex screens. If your application doesn't have this need you can use simpler technologies that don't have the same "Care and feed" requirements of React, such as UIBuilder: https://github.com/wisercoder/uibuilder https://github.com/wisercoder/uibuilder BTW, this lib is a mere 200 lines. Add this 500-line router: https://github.com/edman3d/mvc-router https://github.com/edman3d/mvc-router Now you have a usable "framework" that is 700 lines long, super productive, and no incantations, rituals or ceremony.