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Svelte is so great... so were react, angular, ember, meteor, and vue. I'm sorry, but I've got trouble seeing how having one more framework to learn is going to

by bin0 7y ago

Svelte is so great... so were react, angular, ember, meteor, and vue. I'm sorry, but I've got trouble seeing how having one more framework to learn is going to help any thing. There's a webcomic of some sort to which I can't find the link, which talks about this. Some one is sick of the bloat of x framework/tool/whatever, and decides to build it better. He works hard, and finally version 1.0 is released to dramatic music. But there's a problem - it hits the real world and starts running into edge cases, bugs, and other things that can't be predicted in design and testing, necessarily. Features creep, and over time, it becomes just as bad as that which it sought to replace. Then, some bright young soul gets the idea that he can do it better... This is not to discourage innovation. It doesn't appear it's been battle-tested like other frameworks, and I don't see many major operations on the list of users. If it ends up better, great, but I can't say I'm optimistic.

manigandham 7y ago
It's just more options. Svelte is new in that it actually compiles the components and logic into plain low-level JS code instead of having a "runtime". It's something most of these frameworks should have already done by now considering they need build steps but maybe it needed a new project to make it happen. It's a brand new release though so it'll take more time for uptake, and by people who think the opposite of what you typed.
- bin0 7y ago
  You're right that it's more options, but it's also one more box a "competent JS dev" is expected to tick. One of the best and worst things about the JS ecosystem is the plethora of choices available. On compilation, nope. Riot.js did it first, and this is literally the entire premise of typescript (I know typescript is a different language, but I see little difference here as it can mix with JS between writing only some stuff in TS). You're right, they probably should have done it, and I'm excited to see it. But I also don't see why they couldn't have submitted a PR to react/angular/ember/meteor/vue.
  - rich_harris 7y ago
    > But I also don't see why they couldn't have submitted a PR to react/angular/ember/meteor/vue. I see this sentiment a lot in open source. When I made Rollup — which is now used to build the most popular libraries in the JavaScript ecosystem, including some you just mentioned! — people asked why I didn't just submit a PR to webpack? I understand why people ask that. But it just doesn't work like that. Very often, to take a step forward, you can't simply make incremental changes to an existing project — you need to create new foundations altogether. When Svelte 1 came out in 2016 I was already responsible for a different framework (Ractive), and it wasn't possible to make the changes I wanted there. If you can't do what you need to do by making a PR to your own project, then imagining that you can do it in a PR to someone else's is a fantasy. And it's not simply about adding some extra compiler smarts to existing frameworks. The whole point of Svelte 3 is to rethink the developer experience. It has radical opinions about how we should be building apps, which I've written about in https://svelte.dev/blog/svelte-3-rethinking-reactivity https://svelte.dev/blog/svelte-3-rethinking-reactivity and https://svelte.dev/blog/write-less-code https://svelte.dev/blog/write-less-code.
    - CharlesW 7y ago
      It's a shame that the site's down. Until then, you can (and I heartily recommend doing so) watch the "Rethinking reactivity" video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao
      - mgomez 7y ago
        You do realize that you replied to the very same person that's presenting in that video, right? :)
    - ofrzeta 7y ago
      FWIW I did a project with Ractive before React became popular, and I liked it. I guess for many problems it would still be enough if only it were more popular.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jmcphers 7y ago
This is the webcomic in question: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
nailer 7y ago
> I've got trouble seeing how having one more framework to learn is going to help any thing. That's a good question. - Svelte makes far smaller files than React - Svelte is faster to execute than React - Svelte is easier to learn
- thestepafter 7y ago
  Sounds like Vue.js to me...
  - wirahx 7y ago
    Oddly, it's a lot like Vue.js, except pre-compiled with a simpler syntax. Vue3 is about to make some syntax changes which will make Vue.js a lot like Svelte... :)
    - aitchnyu 7y ago
      What specific syntax changes will make Vue like Svelte?
rco8786 7y ago
We should probably all just give up, eh?
- gridlockd 7y ago
  We should probably settle. Other platforms afford a new UI framework maybe once a decade. The Web Frontend, already running on top of an apparently inadequate framework called "HTML5", somehow needs to be reinvented every year and it's a huge cost factor.
  - wirahx 7y ago
    and this is exactly why I still drive a Ford Model-T.
    - tashoecraft 7y ago
      comes in black, why would any one need another color. Glad we all settled on black being the only color for cars.
      - aitchnyu 7y ago
        Python has a code formatter named Black after Ford's quote and is almost uncustomisable. https://github.com/python/black https://github.com/python/black
  - manigandham 7y ago
    You don't have to use any of it. This website you're reading is just HTML from a server.
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      If everyone's busy setting little fires, then "You don't have to join in" is not a very good defense.
      - 7y ago

by bin0 7y ago

manigandham 7y ago

It's just more options. Svelte is new in that it actually compiles the components and logic into plain low-level JS code instead of having a "runtime". It's something most of these frameworks should have already done by now considering they need build steps but maybe it needed a new project to make it happen. It's a brand new release though so it'll take more time for uptake, and by people who think the opposite of what you typed.

bin0 7y ago
You're right that it's more options, but it's also one more box a "competent JS dev" is expected to tick. One of the best and worst things about the JS ecosystem is the plethora of choices available. On compilation, nope. Riot.js did it first, and this is literally the entire premise of typescript (I know typescript is a different language, but I see little difference here as it can mix with JS between writing only some stuff in TS). You're right, they probably should have done it, and I'm excited to see it. But I also don't see why they couldn't have submitted a PR to react/angular/ember/meteor/vue.
- rich_harris 7y ago
  > But I also don't see why they couldn't have submitted a PR to react/angular/ember/meteor/vue. I see this sentiment a lot in open source. When I made Rollup — which is now used to build the most popular libraries in the JavaScript ecosystem, including some you just mentioned! — people asked why I didn't just submit a PR to webpack? I understand why people ask that. But it just doesn't work like that. Very often, to take a step forward, you can't simply make incremental changes to an existing project — you need to create new foundations altogether. When Svelte 1 came out in 2016 I was already responsible for a different framework (Ractive), and it wasn't possible to make the changes I wanted there. If you can't do what you need to do by making a PR to your own project, then imagining that you can do it in a PR to someone else's is a fantasy. And it's not simply about adding some extra compiler smarts to existing frameworks. The whole point of Svelte 3 is to rethink the developer experience. It has radical opinions about how we should be building apps, which I've written about in https://svelte.dev/blog/svelte-3-rethinking-reactivity https://svelte.dev/blog/svelte-3-rethinking-reactivity and https://svelte.dev/blog/write-less-code https://svelte.dev/blog/write-less-code.
  - CharlesW 7y ago
    It's a shame that the site's down. Until then, you can (and I heartily recommend doing so) watch the "Rethinking reactivity" video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao
    - mgomez 7y ago
      You do realize that you replied to the very same person that's presenting in that video, right? :)
  - ofrzeta 7y ago
    FWIW I did a project with Ractive before React became popular, and I liked it. I guess for many problems it would still be enough if only it were more popular.
- gridlockd 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jmcphers 7y ago

This is the webcomic in question: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/

nailer 7y ago

> I've got trouble seeing how having one more framework to learn is going to help any thing. That's a good question. - Svelte makes far smaller files than React - Svelte is faster to execute than React - Svelte is easier to learn

thestepafter 7y ago
Sounds like Vue.js to me...
- wirahx 7y ago
  Oddly, it's a lot like Vue.js, except pre-compiled with a simpler syntax. Vue3 is about to make some syntax changes which will make Vue.js a lot like Svelte... :)
  - aitchnyu 7y ago
    What specific syntax changes will make Vue like Svelte?

rco8786 7y ago

We should probably all just give up, eh?

gridlockd 7y ago
We should probably settle. Other platforms afford a new UI framework maybe once a decade. The Web Frontend, already running on top of an apparently inadequate framework called "HTML5", somehow needs to be reinvented every year and it's a huge cost factor.
- wirahx 7y ago
  and this is exactly why I still drive a Ford Model-T.
  - tashoecraft 7y ago
    comes in black, why would any one need another color. Glad we all settled on black being the only color for cars.
    - aitchnyu 7y ago
      Python has a code formatter named Black after Ford's quote and is almost uncustomisable. https://github.com/python/black https://github.com/python/black
- manigandham 7y ago
  You don't have to use any of it. This website you're reading is just HTML from a server.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    If everyone's busy setting little fires, then "You don't have to join in" is not a very good defense.
    - 7y ago