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> do you really need all this to make a UI This only makes sense for a very narrow conception of the range of UI problems. If your UI is just a basic form or t

> do you really need all this to make a UI This only makes sense for a very narrow conception of the range of UI problems. If your UI is just a basic form or trivially reflecting database structure in a CRUD app, then you would have little to no need for React. If you were to try building e.g. the full Gmail UI and make the attempt with e.g. document.querySelector (or jquery) and again with React you would have a painfully clear understand of the necessity. (And I've selected Gmail here not as an extreme example, but rather as typical of the kind of thing I've seen React getting used to build.) As far as needing "all this," there seems to be a misconception: React is actually quite compact. If you take into account its entire history (as you might have to if maintaining a legacy codebase), you'd find some inelegant redundancy (mostly just supporting both class and function components)—but if you're just grabbing the latest version and using it for an appropriate problem, I think someone with a sense for good system design would have few complaints.

makotech221 5y ago
Unfortunately for your argument, Gmail was far superior before the big 'app' rewrite.
- westoncb 5y ago
  If my argument were that the new version of Gmail was better than the old one, and if the old version being "far superior" had some objective grounding—then you might be on to something. But that wasn't my argument at all. Gmail isn't even written with React. And if it were it would still be irrelevant: I'm not arguing "writing a program in React means it will be a good and well-designed program"; I'm saying if you write the same complex program twice, once with built-in browser APIs and once with React, you will on average find that the React implementation is far quicker to write, more concise, fewer bugs, and so on.
  - mdoms 5y ago
    > if you write the same complex program twice, once with built-in browser APIs and once with React That's a false dichotomy.
    - westoncb 5y ago
      I suppose one might arise if I were claiming those were the only two options. But on a closer re-reading you'll easily find that's not the case.
aaronbrethorst 5y ago
Nah, disagree. Case in point is Basecamp’s Hey product. Rails monolith. Server side rendered. JavaScript ‘sprinkles’ with Hotwire. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275901955995385856?s=21 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275901955995385856?s=21
- westoncb 5y ago
  What I can find on "Hey" so far looks extremely basic as far as UI goes. And by all means, if what you're building only requires a very basic UI—absolutely go for it. My argument is that when you're faced with is an intrinsically difficult UI problem, React (or similar FRP-inspired frameworks which the community has stabilized around) is a huge improvement over the "simpler" past way of doing it. And the only way to really understand that is to try building non-trivial applications with both.
  - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
    Whatever makes you happy, my dude
    - westoncb 5y ago
      I mean, am I mistaken? Is the UI more complex than it looks or something? I'm just basing my comment off what I've been able to find through your reference. If there is some new system that's a genuine improvement over React and kin I'd love to know about it.
      - Scarblac 5y ago
        Generally speaking, simple UI sounds like something to aim for. If your UI is "intrinsically difficult", there's a high risk the user will conclude the same thing.
        rat9988 5y ago
        Usually the difficulty of a user to conceptualize something has nothing to do with the complexity of the code.

makotech221 5y ago

Unfortunately for your argument, Gmail was far superior before the big 'app' rewrite.

westoncb 5y ago
If my argument were that the new version of Gmail was better than the old one, and if the old version being "far superior" had some objective grounding—then you might be on to something. But that wasn't my argument at all. Gmail isn't even written with React. And if it were it would still be irrelevant: I'm not arguing "writing a program in React means it will be a good and well-designed program"; I'm saying if you write the same complex program twice, once with built-in browser APIs and once with React, you will on average find that the React implementation is far quicker to write, more concise, fewer bugs, and so on.
- mdoms 5y ago
  > if you write the same complex program twice, once with built-in browser APIs and once with React That's a false dichotomy.
  - westoncb 5y ago
    I suppose one might arise if I were claiming those were the only two options. But on a closer re-reading you'll easily find that's not the case.

aaronbrethorst 5y ago

Nah, disagree. Case in point is Basecamp’s Hey product. Rails monolith. Server side rendered. JavaScript ‘sprinkles’ with Hotwire. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275901955995385856?s=21 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275901955995385856?s=21

westoncb 5y ago
What I can find on "Hey" so far looks extremely basic as far as UI goes. And by all means, if what you're building only requires a very basic UI—absolutely go for it. My argument is that when you're faced with is an intrinsically difficult UI problem, React (or similar FRP-inspired frameworks which the community has stabilized around) is a huge improvement over the "simpler" past way of doing it. And the only way to really understand that is to try building non-trivial applications with both.
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  Whatever makes you happy, my dude
  - westoncb 5y ago
    I mean, am I mistaken? Is the UI more complex than it looks or something? I'm just basing my comment off what I've been able to find through your reference. If there is some new system that's a genuine improvement over React and kin I'd love to know about it.
    - Scarblac 5y ago
      Generally speaking, simple UI sounds like something to aim for. If your UI is "intrinsically difficult", there's a high risk the user will conclude the same thing.
      - rat9988 5y ago
        Usually the difficulty of a user to conceptualize something has nothing to do with the complexity of the code.