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I've started and quit web dev projects about 4 times in the past 5 years. I'm a distributed systems dev. The complexity of the recommended tool chain is mind bo

I've started and quit web dev projects about 4 times in the past 5 years. I'm a distributed systems dev. The complexity of the recommended tool chain is mind boggling (and I consider my day job incredibly complex, of which I have a decade of experience doing). I would have said I hate React. Finally started another project. No frameworks this time. Started with html and single js file until I needed more.. and solved the problems step by step. I'm at the point that I now see the benefits of react, but only by doing it this way could I possibly learn why.

sprkwd 4y ago
I have completely given up on web dev these days.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  Backend is worse, they’ll make you use the Spring “framework” that makes React look like a dream.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    A couple annotations and a base application class and you're up and running with a REST service. That's considered hard?
    - presentation 4y ago
      Translated to React: a single render function and you're up and running with a webpage. That's considered hard?
  - mdoms 4y ago
    Spring is a simple MVC framework, it follows the same patterns as similar Ruby, Python, C#, PHP etc frameworks. React very much blazes its own complicated trail.
    - Blackthorn 4y ago
      Well, nowadays anyway. It's come a long way from the point where an AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean seemed like a viable solution to a problem in the framework.
    - erik_seaberg 4y ago
      Spring is a powerful but pretty complicated DI framework. That MVC stuff is also there but for many use cases (microservices, batch, CLI) it’s not really helpful.
    - ratww 4y ago
      That statement is beyond the absurd. The API of React is several orders of magnitude smaller than Spring and similar MVC frameworks with the same feature. There is even a React replacement with feature parity, Preact, that clocks around 3kb.
  - guywhocodes 4y ago
    We have a basic template that when empty, takes about 20min to compile on a very new laptop, builds to a 200MB+ jar.
    - newtwilly 4y ago
      Something sounds wrong, but I don't know exactly what you mean by "basic template"? Like a Spring boot example app?
eastbound 4y ago
One major problem React solves is HTML injection. It used to be an interview question to work at our place, and since React, developers don’t often realize that old frameworks like Freemarker didn’t escape HTML. By default.
- arcbyte 4y ago
  I remember html escaping being a problem in the early 2000s, but promptly solved. Its been solved in every language for over a decade. React didnt do jack to solve it because it was already table stakes and had been for over a decade.
- bennysomething 4y ago
  Genuine question, what do you mean escape html by default?
  - likecarter 4y ago
    If someone submits a text field with the contents `<bold>Injection</bold>` that will then be reflected on the site (i.e. a comment section), React will display the literal string, rather than bolded text.
    - bennysomething 4y ago
      Ah I see! Thanks
moonchrome 4y ago
>I'm at the point that I now see the benefits of react, but only by doing it this way could I possibly learn why. That's why I feel bad for the new generation of developers. When I started developing in 2000s it was enough to know low level abstractions, some design patterns, etc. Along the way I've seen the context in which for eg. MVC was revolutionary, and all the latest frameworks actually solved a lot of real problems (SQL query in PHP garbage all over the place on backend, jQuery/MooTools/ExtJS/Coffescript/AngularJS, supporting IE6, etc.) A lot of modern tools make sense to me because I know the context they came out of. I feel we've done a shit job of preserving this context and lesions that lead to current frameworks - this will eventually lead people to rediscover all the mistakes that were hit in past, but also saddle us with legacy burden because it's hard to distinguish what's relevant and what's a result of historic constraints.

sprkwd 4y ago

I have completely given up on web dev these days.

commandlinefan 4y ago
Backend is worse, they’ll make you use the Spring “framework” that makes React look like a dream.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  A couple annotations and a base application class and you're up and running with a REST service. That's considered hard?
  - presentation 4y ago
    Translated to React: a single render function and you're up and running with a webpage. That's considered hard?
- mdoms 4y ago
  Spring is a simple MVC framework, it follows the same patterns as similar Ruby, Python, C#, PHP etc frameworks. React very much blazes its own complicated trail.
  - Blackthorn 4y ago
    Well, nowadays anyway. It's come a long way from the point where an AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean seemed like a viable solution to a problem in the framework.
  - erik_seaberg 4y ago
    Spring is a powerful but pretty complicated DI framework. That MVC stuff is also there but for many use cases (microservices, batch, CLI) it’s not really helpful.
  - ratww 4y ago
    That statement is beyond the absurd. The API of React is several orders of magnitude smaller than Spring and similar MVC frameworks with the same feature. There is even a React replacement with feature parity, Preact, that clocks around 3kb.
- guywhocodes 4y ago
  We have a basic template that when empty, takes about 20min to compile on a very new laptop, builds to a 200MB+ jar.
  - newtwilly 4y ago
    Something sounds wrong, but I don't know exactly what you mean by "basic template"? Like a Spring boot example app?

eastbound 4y ago

One major problem React solves is HTML injection. It used to be an interview question to work at our place, and since React, developers don’t often realize that old frameworks like Freemarker didn’t escape HTML. By default.

arcbyte 4y ago
I remember html escaping being a problem in the early 2000s, but promptly solved. Its been solved in every language for over a decade. React didnt do jack to solve it because it was already table stakes and had been for over a decade.
bennysomething 4y ago
Genuine question, what do you mean escape html by default?
- likecarter 4y ago
  If someone submits a text field with the contents `<bold>Injection</bold>` that will then be reflected on the site (i.e. a comment section), React will display the literal string, rather than bolded text.
  - bennysomething 4y ago
    Ah I see! Thanks

moonchrome 4y ago

>I'm at the point that I now see the benefits of react, but only by doing it this way could I possibly learn why. That's why I feel bad for the new generation of developers. When I started developing in 2000s it was enough to know low level abstractions, some design patterns, etc. Along the way I've seen the context in which for eg. MVC was revolutionary, and all the latest frameworks actually solved a lot of real problems (SQL query in PHP garbage all over the place on backend, jQuery/MooTools/ExtJS/Coffescript/AngularJS, supporting IE6, etc.) A lot of modern tools make sense to me because I know the context they came out of. I feel we've done a shit job of preserving this context and lesions that lead to current frameworks - this will eventually lead people to rediscover all the mistakes that were hit in past, but also saddle us with legacy burden because it's hard to distinguish what's relevant and what's a result of historic constraints.