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I am a senior web developer with 12 years of experience, also perplexed by that statement. Edit: The React repo is 3 million+ lines of code, written in its own

I am a senior web developer with 12 years of experience, also perplexed by that statement. Edit: The React repo is 3 million+ lines of code, written in its own niche language...

uryga 5y ago
what niche language?
- vgel 5y ago
  Flow
  - egeozcan 5y ago
    I find it interesting (and, a bit funny, tbh) how flow became a niche language. This is the difference investing in tooling makes, folks.
brundolf 5y ago
There are different definitions of "simplicity". The entire stack top to bottom may not be simple, but if the developer experience is simple (which it can often be on the web- that's a major driver of the web's prevalence as a platform), that can be what matters. I have a theory that the people who go on about how the web ecosystem is too complicated are either 1) web developers who are nostalgic for the jQuery days (and have selective memories about those days), or 2) non-GUI developers who enjoy the theoretical virtues of a QT or a GTK but have never actually had to work on a complex GUI, and so can't appreciate the incredible benefits the web has over those other platforms.
- kaba0 5y ago
  What are the incredible benefits of the web? Have you worked on a complex QT app?
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    I have seen a LOT of Qt apps and 100% of them had worse UI than your average web app.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      I've seen lots of Qt apps. Most of them have been much better than the average web app.
  - subw00f 5y ago
    I have worked with both, including Widgets and Quick. I wonder why you think Qtcom is focusing development on Quick, which uses QML (JSON-like syntax) and JavaScript (ES6), while declaring Widgets "feature complete", mostly releasing minor fixes, in other words, keeping it stagnated. The obvious answer for me without getting into Mobile vs Desktop development is: it's easier to get new professionals to use technology as popular as JS (or any other web related stuff), and definitely cheaper for companies to hire said professionals, therefore making it a easier pick for new projects. To summarize the benefits: easier for junior devs to use and because of that overall cheaper/faster deliveries. Note that I'm not saying anything about quality.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      Junior developer doesn't mean a developer who just knows JavaScript. Cheaper developers doesn't mean faster or cheaper delivery in the long run. And I don't think brundolf meant cheaper developers.
- kwanbix 5y ago
  Maybe you are too young, but there was a time were we used RADs (Rapid Application Development) environments like Delphi, VisualBasic, Visual C++, etc. Those solutions which are from 1990s, are still years ahead in simplicity vs what you need to do to build a full web solution today (front-end and backend). Of course the web has many other benefits, like 0 install, runs everywhere, always updated, etc., but calling web development simple is just crazy in my humble opinion.
ramchip 5y ago
Where do you get that figure from? I'm looking at the add/delete statistics for instance: https://github.com/facebook/react/graphs/contributors https://github.com/facebook/react/graphs/contributors It doesn't seem possible for this to add up to 3M lines of code?
- shakow 5y ago
  Indeed, tokei gives me ~400 000 lines, including ~310 000 LoC.
11235813213455 5y ago
while preact is 3kb and does the same
- mpfundstein 5y ago
  it does not do the same. it does few things that react does and thats it. what an ignorant comment
  - 11235813213455 5y ago
    There's preact/compat sub-module for the remaining react features, please inform yourself before inappropriately flaming someone. There some very slight differences https://preactjs.com/guide/v8/differences-to-react/#what-s-missing https://preactjs.com/guide/v8/differences-to-react/#what-s-m... nothing blocking at all
    - 59nadir 5y ago
      Does it have hooks? Class components are super tedious in comparison.
      - 11235813213455 5y ago
        `import { useState } from 'preact/hooks';` yes https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/hooks https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/hooks
spookthesunset 5y ago
In my 20 years as a developer I’ve learned that the more polished something looks on the surface, the more complex the codebase under the hood becomes. Things are simple to the end user because of all that complexity.
- cryptos 5y ago
  That is my experience, too. I worked on a SPA with a more or less simple looking table that presented hierarchical data and made them editable with form elements. Under the hood there were hundred lines of very dense rxjs code and the whole thing was communicating with about 10 HTTP endpoints. But it looked simple.
buchanaf 5y ago
It's a monorepo, so the only package you are really interested in is 'packages/react-dom', which I'm guessing is less than 3 million.

I am a senior web developer with 12 years of experience, also perplexed by that statement. Edit: The React repo is 3 million+ lines of code, written in its own niche language...

uryga 5y ago

what niche language?

vgel 5y ago
Flow
- egeozcan 5y ago
  I find it interesting (and, a bit funny, tbh) how flow became a niche language. This is the difference investing in tooling makes, folks.

brundolf 5y ago

There are different definitions of "simplicity". The entire stack top to bottom may not be simple, but if the developer experience is simple (which it can often be on the web- that's a major driver of the web's prevalence as a platform), that can be what matters. I have a theory that the people who go on about how the web ecosystem is too complicated are either 1) web developers who are nostalgic for the jQuery days (and have selective memories about those days), or 2) non-GUI developers who enjoy the theoretical virtues of a QT or a GTK but have never actually had to work on a complex GUI, and so can't appreciate the incredible benefits the web has over those other platforms.

kaba0 5y ago
What are the incredible benefits of the web? Have you worked on a complex QT app?
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  I have seen a LOT of Qt apps and 100% of them had worse UI than your average web app.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    I've seen lots of Qt apps. Most of them have been much better than the average web app.
- subw00f 5y ago
  I have worked with both, including Widgets and Quick. I wonder why you think Qtcom is focusing development on Quick, which uses QML (JSON-like syntax) and JavaScript (ES6), while declaring Widgets "feature complete", mostly releasing minor fixes, in other words, keeping it stagnated. The obvious answer for me without getting into Mobile vs Desktop development is: it's easier to get new professionals to use technology as popular as JS (or any other web related stuff), and definitely cheaper for companies to hire said professionals, therefore making it a easier pick for new projects. To summarize the benefits: easier for junior devs to use and because of that overall cheaper/faster deliveries. Note that I'm not saying anything about quality.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Junior developer doesn't mean a developer who just knows JavaScript. Cheaper developers doesn't mean faster or cheaper delivery in the long run. And I don't think brundolf meant cheaper developers.
kwanbix 5y ago
Maybe you are too young, but there was a time were we used RADs (Rapid Application Development) environments like Delphi, VisualBasic, Visual C++, etc. Those solutions which are from 1990s, are still years ahead in simplicity vs what you need to do to build a full web solution today (front-end and backend). Of course the web has many other benefits, like 0 install, runs everywhere, always updated, etc., but calling web development simple is just crazy in my humble opinion.

ramchip 5y ago

Where do you get that figure from? I'm looking at the add/delete statistics for instance: https://github.com/facebook/react/graphs/contributors https://github.com/facebook/react/graphs/contributors It doesn't seem possible for this to add up to 3M lines of code?

shakow 5y ago
Indeed, tokei gives me ~400 000 lines, including ~310 000 LoC.

11235813213455 5y ago

while preact is 3kb and does the same

mpfundstein 5y ago
it does not do the same. it does few things that react does and thats it. what an ignorant comment
- 11235813213455 5y ago
  There's preact/compat sub-module for the remaining react features, please inform yourself before inappropriately flaming someone. There some very slight differences https://preactjs.com/guide/v8/differences-to-react/#what-s-missing https://preactjs.com/guide/v8/differences-to-react/#what-s-m... nothing blocking at all
  - 59nadir 5y ago
    Does it have hooks? Class components are super tedious in comparison.
    - 11235813213455 5y ago
      `import { useState } from 'preact/hooks';` yes https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/hooks https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/hooks

spookthesunset 5y ago

In my 20 years as a developer I’ve learned that the more polished something looks on the surface, the more complex the codebase under the hood becomes. Things are simple to the end user because of all that complexity.

cryptos 5y ago
That is my experience, too. I worked on a SPA with a more or less simple looking table that presented hierarchical data and made them editable with form elements. Under the hood there were hundred lines of very dense rxjs code and the whole thing was communicating with about 10 HTTP endpoints. But it looked simple.

buchanaf 5y ago

It's a monorepo, so the only package you are really interested in is 'packages/react-dom', which I'm guessing is less than 3 million.