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The developer's project was exactly the type of project which should use React: a "web app", an application which is on a webpage. A problem with React (or any

The developer's project was exactly the type of project which should use React: a "web app", an application which is on a webpage. A problem with React (or any big library really) is that sometimes developers use it for blogs, forms, or other simple websites. There are many great tools out there for these websites, React is not one of them.

jinnko 6y ago
> sometimes developers use it for blogs, forms, or other simple websites. There are many great tools out there for these websites, React is not one of them. Such as?
- JackMorgan 6y ago
  Here's a vote for Hugo, the static site generator written in Go. It's blazing fast. I use it for my blog and love it.
  - oknoorap 6y ago
    Have you tried NextJS or Gatsby?
    - anaganisk 6y ago
      Gatsby and its magic comes no where near Hugo, hugo is basically just select the theme and write markdown Gatsby and its quirks, are just too heavy. I would rather suggest Next.js.
      - oknoorap 6y ago
        Yep, Next.js export build to static HTML is pretty impressive.
  - bogwog 6y ago
    > It's blazing fast. This seems like an odd value proposition for a static site generator. Even a really shitty, unoptimized single threaded non-incremental build system shouldn’t struggle too hard to compile a static site. And even if it does, if it has a good amount of features, it shouldn’t be a problem for most use-cases.
    - plorkyeran 6y ago
      Using jekyll I've gotten 30+ minute build times for sites. SSGs aren't only useful for sites with a single-digit number of pages.
      - JackMorgan 6y ago
        I switched from Jekyll, it's amazing to me how slow it was to build a simple hundred pages of HTML. What Hugo does in Uber a second took Jekyll several minutes.
- danielheath 6y ago
  For a blog? Give someone a few dollars to run wordpress for you and move on to writing content.
  - andrewingram 6y ago
    Sure, as far as getting up and running cheaply and quickly is concerned, Wordpress is a great choice. But most Wordpress-based personal sites I've come across are significantly slower than the React-based personal sites i'm aware of. There's a big problem with abusing plugins that haven't been designed with any kind of performance in mind.
    - BrianOnHN 6y ago
      If it's a blog then use a CDN.
      - andrewingram 6y ago
        This is as true with React as it is with Wordpress. I can’t speak as to wider trends, but anyone using Gatsby or Next.is and deploying on Netlify or Vercel is going to be getting good caching and use of a CDN by default. My point was that the amount of client-side bloat in a Wordpress personal site seems to be higher than the equivalent React site, and the overall performance seems to be worse.
    - cj 6y ago
      If you're starting a blog, chances are you're going to care a lot about SEO. Wordpress is a much better starting point from a SEO perspective than a react app built from scratch. Performance is quick if you put it behind a CDN and disable things like comments (which I suppose you also wouldn't have in a react blog, unless you're building a commenting system from the ground up, too)
      - andrewingram 6y ago
        Is that really true? I’m not a big fan of Gatsby, but if someone opts to use that, there are enough popular plugins to make all the key SEO work happen pretty automatically. People building personal sites with React are mostly starting from one of the popular frameworks, these give you pretty sensible defaults for both performance and SEO (for which performance is now a factor).
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  HTML and CSS and Javascript.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
> developers use it for blogs, forms, or other simple websites. Starting to see this on my team, example would be a simple marketing landing page, then for what are perfectly normal things you’d have on the page like a video player or a button they start using the components built for the web app. Then you ask them for things to behave a little different or for some of the normal things you’d expect on a marketing page like a video auto playing silently with subtitles. Then you just start getting told “nah it’s too much work the component wasn’t built to do that”.

jinnko 6y ago

> sometimes developers use it for blogs, forms, or other simple websites. There are many great tools out there for these websites, React is not one of them. Such as?

JackMorgan 6y ago
Here's a vote for Hugo, the static site generator written in Go. It's blazing fast. I use it for my blog and love it.
- oknoorap 6y ago
  Have you tried NextJS or Gatsby?
  - anaganisk 6y ago
    Gatsby and its magic comes no where near Hugo, hugo is basically just select the theme and write markdown Gatsby and its quirks, are just too heavy. I would rather suggest Next.js.
    - oknoorap 6y ago
      Yep, Next.js export build to static HTML is pretty impressive.
- bogwog 6y ago
  > It's blazing fast. This seems like an odd value proposition for a static site generator. Even a really shitty, unoptimized single threaded non-incremental build system shouldn’t struggle too hard to compile a static site. And even if it does, if it has a good amount of features, it shouldn’t be a problem for most use-cases.
  - plorkyeran 6y ago
    Using jekyll I've gotten 30+ minute build times for sites. SSGs aren't only useful for sites with a single-digit number of pages.
    - JackMorgan 6y ago
      I switched from Jekyll, it's amazing to me how slow it was to build a simple hundred pages of HTML. What Hugo does in Uber a second took Jekyll several minutes.
danielheath 6y ago
For a blog? Give someone a few dollars to run wordpress for you and move on to writing content.
- andrewingram 6y ago
  Sure, as far as getting up and running cheaply and quickly is concerned, Wordpress is a great choice. But most Wordpress-based personal sites I've come across are significantly slower than the React-based personal sites i'm aware of. There's a big problem with abusing plugins that haven't been designed with any kind of performance in mind.
  - BrianOnHN 6y ago
    If it's a blog then use a CDN.
    - andrewingram 6y ago
      This is as true with React as it is with Wordpress. I can’t speak as to wider trends, but anyone using Gatsby or Next.is and deploying on Netlify or Vercel is going to be getting good caching and use of a CDN by default. My point was that the amount of client-side bloat in a Wordpress personal site seems to be higher than the equivalent React site, and the overall performance seems to be worse.
  - cj 6y ago
    If you're starting a blog, chances are you're going to care a lot about SEO. Wordpress is a much better starting point from a SEO perspective than a react app built from scratch. Performance is quick if you put it behind a CDN and disable things like comments (which I suppose you also wouldn't have in a react blog, unless you're building a commenting system from the ground up, too)
    - andrewingram 6y ago
      Is that really true? I’m not a big fan of Gatsby, but if someone opts to use that, there are enough popular plugins to make all the key SEO work happen pretty automatically. People building personal sites with React are mostly starting from one of the popular frameworks, these give you pretty sensible defaults for both performance and SEO (for which performance is now a factor).
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
HTML and CSS and Javascript.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

> developers use it for blogs, forms, or other simple websites. Starting to see this on my team, example would be a simple marketing landing page, then for what are perfectly normal things you’d have on the page like a video player or a button they start using the components built for the web app. Then you ask them for things to behave a little different or for some of the normal things you’d expect on a marketing page like a video auto playing silently with subtitles. Then you just start getting told “nah it’s too much work the component wasn’t built to do that”.