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Eh, this article is wrong right off the bat. “React isn't great at anything except being popular.” When the rubber hits the road, React is good. There’s a hun

Eh, this article is wrong right off the bat. “React isn't great at anything except being popular.” When the rubber hits the road, React is good. There’s a hundred thousand tiny little facets of its design that all contribute its effectiveness in getting functional (as in operationally successful) results. I’m no React fanatic. I hate the bundle sizes, the weird quirks with hooks, the footguns with performance, etc etc. But it works, and the results speak for themselves. I recently hacked for two weeks on React, Node and React Native to produce a CRUD app for Chrome and Android. It’s no FAANG app, being hosted locally for the site that needed, no localisation, ugly code, barely optimized… but it works! It has served its purpose well with minimal bugs for months, saving potentially thousands of hours of tedious labour. With React, I can prototype and get results fast. I’ve tried Vue, Angular, Vanilla, Blaze/Meteor, EmberJS, and even tried my own custom framework based on MobX. None were as good for getting results. For a bunch of little reasons, React is just… really effective.

boffinism 4y ago
The sentence immediately after the one you quoted was: "Don’t get me wrong: React is good". So dismissing the article on the grounds that 'React is good' doesn't get you very far.
- aeternum 4y ago
  React is good enough. And using a framework that devs are already familiar with is grossly underrated. Sure good devs can learn any language/framework, but there is a learning curve and most write shitty code while unfamiliar with a framework. Popularity is an important feature.
xani_ 4y ago
>Eh, this article is wrong right off the bat. > “React isn't great at anything except being popular.” So did you stop reading the rest of the article after you hit that sentence or what ?
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  In my opinion React is "great" at a lot of anything, besides being popular. The original author makes the point that other frameworks are greater, and I don't agree with the unqualified nature of that judgement. React is really effective. And that makes it "great" in my book.
- DecoPerson 4y ago
  The article is arguing that companies keeping using it and devs keep learning React because it’s popular and a “safe choice.” I’m arguing that they keep choosing it because it’s effective and markedly more effective than the other choices currently available.
  - apd_ 4y ago
    In which way is React more effective than say Svelte?
    - Robin_Message 4y ago
      React Native
pc86 4y ago
You're basically agreeing with (and summarizing) the article, so I'm not sure what exactly you think the article is wrong about?
woojoo666 4y ago
Any examples of places you think React's design does better than say, Vue or Svelte?
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  In my opinion, two-way bindings are evil...
  - jesuscript 4y ago
    For simple inputs it’s fine. What are really solving by methodically doing that one-way?
    - Marazan 4y ago
      Two way data bindings works in the absolutely most trivial case. As soon as you go any amount of complexity higher in your program two way databinding is pure poison. Two-way databinding is the absolute very worst feature people took from Flex.
- wokwokwok 4y ago
  I had the unfortunate job of learning vue recently and it sucks hard at some edge cases. Specifically, imagine you a component that takes an arbitrary node to render. Just pass the node to the temple right? Ha. This api sucks -> https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/render-function.html https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/render-function.html Compared to having “{node}” in react.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    They are almost literally the exact same API. Prior to the “automatic JSX transform”, they were basically identical. That’s how both libraries support JSX, which isn’t always exactly a mapping to h but is almost totally in both React and Vue (and Preact, and even in Solid if you ignore recommendations to use its custom JSX transform). The API you’re criticizing is specifically good because it enables what you prefer in React.
otabdeveloper4 4y ago
You know what else works? HTML <form>. And I guarantee you 100 percent the <form> is miles ahead of your React "app" in internationalization, accessibility, performance and portability.
- Tomuus 4y ago
  Using the Web Platform and using React are not opposites, you can do both. See: Remix as a framework that bakes in these ideas, but using the platform is easily achievable yourself too. Making this distinction between HTML <form>s and React shows a clear misunderstanding of the programming model that React provides. It targets the platform in a native way. This is how React DOM, React Native, and libraries like Ink[1] work. [1] https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink
  - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
    Maybe, but I've never (as in not even once) seen a React "app" that didn't try to re-implement the web platform and didn't fail on many user-facing metrics.
- yazaddaruvala 4y ago
  I’ve built many real world web forms. React (or similar) is the only way to keep them sane. Interdependencies between fields. Toggling visibility, dynamically changing drop downs based on previous values. They almost always require local and remote validation. Sometimes long running validation that needs to be triggered early so it’s done by “submit time”. If it’s not done the submit needs to wait. Any and all invalidation based on changing previous fields. Adding explainability. Submission preview. Mixing multi-media with regular text values. Complex error messaging that sometimes requires interactivity (e.g. uploading images may have errors for image quality and it’s nice to have the ability to crop or re-center an image from the error message). If you think my requirements are over and above, maybe, but if you care about user experience it’s critical. If you think the forms I’m building are “overly complicated” and “rare”, I disagree. Almost all of the above even apply to one of the simplest/very common usecase: “What is your address?”. eg handling global addresses with ergonomic drop downs, postal code validation, previewing the address and asking for user input for normalizing the address, etc. Similarly very common use cases for forms, contact information with phone number and/or email validation. Using web forms is basically impossible or at best user hostile in 2022.
the_gipsy 4y ago
> When the rubber hits the road, React is good. Except the back button doesn't work right.
- zero_shift 4y ago
  That's history management. Not a React concern.
  - the_gipsy 4y ago
    Say that to the user.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - smrq 4y ago
      That... doesn't make sense. The user isn't complaining that React is bad, just that your app is bad. And your app is bad because you handled history incorrectly, which has nothing to do with your choice of UI framework.

boffinism 4y ago

The sentence immediately after the one you quoted was: "Don’t get me wrong: React is good". So dismissing the article on the grounds that 'React is good' doesn't get you very far.

aeternum 4y ago
React is good enough. And using a framework that devs are already familiar with is grossly underrated. Sure good devs can learn any language/framework, but there is a learning curve and most write shitty code while unfamiliar with a framework. Popularity is an important feature.

xani_ 4y ago

>Eh, this article is wrong right off the bat. > “React isn't great at anything except being popular.” So did you stop reading the rest of the article after you hit that sentence or what ?

bayesian_horse 4y ago
In my opinion React is "great" at a lot of anything, besides being popular. The original author makes the point that other frameworks are greater, and I don't agree with the unqualified nature of that judgement. React is really effective. And that makes it "great" in my book.
DecoPerson 4y ago
The article is arguing that companies keeping using it and devs keep learning React because it’s popular and a “safe choice.” I’m arguing that they keep choosing it because it’s effective and markedly more effective than the other choices currently available.
- apd_ 4y ago
  In which way is React more effective than say Svelte?
  - Robin_Message 4y ago
    React Native

pc86 4y ago

You're basically agreeing with (and summarizing) the article, so I'm not sure what exactly you think the article is wrong about?

woojoo666 4y ago

Any examples of places you think React's design does better than say, Vue or Svelte?

bayesian_horse 4y ago
In my opinion, two-way bindings are evil...
- jesuscript 4y ago
  For simple inputs it’s fine. What are really solving by methodically doing that one-way?
  - Marazan 4y ago
    Two way data bindings works in the absolutely most trivial case. As soon as you go any amount of complexity higher in your program two way databinding is pure poison. Two-way databinding is the absolute very worst feature people took from Flex.
wokwokwok 4y ago
I had the unfortunate job of learning vue recently and it sucks hard at some edge cases. Specifically, imagine you a component that takes an arbitrary node to render. Just pass the node to the temple right? Ha. This api sucks -> https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/render-function.html https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/render-function.html Compared to having “{node}” in react.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  They are almost literally the exact same API. Prior to the “automatic JSX transform”, they were basically identical. That’s how both libraries support JSX, which isn’t always exactly a mapping to h but is almost totally in both React and Vue (and Preact, and even in Solid if you ignore recommendations to use its custom JSX transform). The API you’re criticizing is specifically good because it enables what you prefer in React.

otabdeveloper4 4y ago

You know what else works? HTML <form>. And I guarantee you 100 percent the <form> is miles ahead of your React "app" in internationalization, accessibility, performance and portability.

Tomuus 4y ago
Using the Web Platform and using React are not opposites, you can do both. See: Remix as a framework that bakes in these ideas, but using the platform is easily achievable yourself too. Making this distinction between HTML <form>s and React shows a clear misunderstanding of the programming model that React provides. It targets the platform in a native way. This is how React DOM, React Native, and libraries like Ink[1] work. [1] https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  Maybe, but I've never (as in not even once) seen a React "app" that didn't try to re-implement the web platform and didn't fail on many user-facing metrics.
yazaddaruvala 4y ago
I’ve built many real world web forms. React (or similar) is the only way to keep them sane. Interdependencies between fields. Toggling visibility, dynamically changing drop downs based on previous values. They almost always require local and remote validation. Sometimes long running validation that needs to be triggered early so it’s done by “submit time”. If it’s not done the submit needs to wait. Any and all invalidation based on changing previous fields. Adding explainability. Submission preview. Mixing multi-media with regular text values. Complex error messaging that sometimes requires interactivity (e.g. uploading images may have errors for image quality and it’s nice to have the ability to crop or re-center an image from the error message). If you think my requirements are over and above, maybe, but if you care about user experience it’s critical. If you think the forms I’m building are “overly complicated” and “rare”, I disagree. Almost all of the above even apply to one of the simplest/very common usecase: “What is your address?”. eg handling global addresses with ergonomic drop downs, postal code validation, previewing the address and asking for user input for normalizing the address, etc. Similarly very common use cases for forms, contact information with phone number and/or email validation. Using web forms is basically impossible or at best user hostile in 2022.

the_gipsy 4y ago

> When the rubber hits the road, React is good. Except the back button doesn't work right.

zero_shift 4y ago
That's history management. Not a React concern.
- the_gipsy 4y ago
  Say that to the user.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - smrq 4y ago
    That... doesn't make sense. The user isn't complaining that React is bad, just that your app is bad. And your app is bad because you handled history incorrectly, which has nothing to do with your choice of UI framework.