I recently wrote a small web app. I started with https://alpinejs.dev/ https://alpinejs.dev/ linked via CDN, and OpenJSCAD, also linked via CDN - I wrote basic

I recently wrote a small web app. I started with https://alpinejs.dev/ https://alpinejs.dev/ linked via CDN, and OpenJSCAD, also linked via CDN - I wrote basic html, marked it up with alpine `x-model` and `x-data` tags, and sprinkled a little vanilla js on top. Everything worked well and I got 80% of the way through the project. In the final 20% I ended up adding a bundler (parcel), so I could bring in an scss framework and override its variables. While it added a fair bit of complexity to the project (dev dependencies, parcel config files) I gained lighter files via parcel's tree-shaking and minification, auto-recompilation/reload during development, and re-usable html partials via `posthtml-include`. I'm also set up to swap to typescript quickly, if the project gets more complex and I start to get annoyed with the lack of compile-time type checking. So, it's 2022, and you can write a web app without any of the things you mentioned (transpilers, package managers, typescript). Yes, adding even one of them nets you a 100+ dependency node_modules directory - but the reason we keep adding them to our projects is the things it gives us are NICE, and the cost (complexity) is mostly worth it.