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I’m also a developer and tech lead who’s been working with React since the beta. Agreed with all your points about React. I’m not sure I would say Svelte and So

I’m also a developer and tech lead who’s been working with React since the beta. Agreed with all your points about React. I’m not sure I would say Svelte and Solid are a farther step off the “just JavaScript” path than React given JSX though. I haven’t tried Solid, but Svelte has already paid considerable dividends for our team. Frontend feature development pace is faster, the code is generally leaner, and the developers love working with it.

zero_shift 4y ago
> I haven’t tried Solid, but Svelte has already paid considerable dividends for our team. Frontend feature development pace is faster, the code is generally leaner, and the developers love working with it. Is that just down to Svelte, though? Or is it the greenfield effect? Projects always fly quickly at first, when the code is fresh and unconstrained, and you're building the basics. My concern would be when things get complicated and you have to debug Svelte's binding magic - and I have very bad memories doing that in Angular and Knockout.
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  I would argue it's 100% greenfield effect. A rewrite fixes all the things but introduces new problems. I would bet the OP could've achieved the same effect by figuring out what's wrong with their codebase (which honestly is easier for an outsider to do than someone who has worked on it everyday). And I would caution against converting anything to a non JSX or hyperscript language (like svelte or vue), you don't want to tie your entire view to some HTML-like DSL IMO.
  - nophunphil 4y ago
    To clarify, this was new development — not the process of rebuilding of an existing app. For that reason, the greenfield development was indeed simpler. That being said, it’s been one year and making changes to the Svelte application is (in the developers’ opinions) easier than our set of comparably-sized React applications. Of course, all of this is specific to our team members’ skillsets, the application complexity, etc.
    - zero_shift 4y ago
      That's interesting. 12 months is still very early though, unless it's a project with a lot of throughput.
- CitrusFruits 4y ago
  I can confirm Svelte is way easier, leaner, and quicker to work with than React. The exception is, of course, the library support, which is a huge drawback and would make me cautious of using it in a business setting for another year or two.
egeozcan 4y ago
I'm also a TL (which makes me a teaspoon here in Germany, which I like more than the tech lead title). I understand how the development can be faster with Svelte, but ecosystem argument really hits home. You'd get to 80% with Svelte perhaps much faster than React, but that missing library for, say, drag-and-drop makes that last 20% itself plus "hey let's develop our own drag-and-drop library in-house which should be easy and opinionated and maybe it gets open-sourced" (it will be hard, with crazy high budget, as it will try to cover many use-cases you will never have and it still won't be open-sourced because now it's your "core competency" and five months later someone will realize your component has terrible a11y and etc. and one million bug fixes later it is a monster code-base that none wants to touch and maybe rewrite? oh here we go again).
- eatonphil 4y ago
  What is a teaspoon?
  - wyclif 4y ago
    Yeah, I also didn't get the 'teaspoon' reference.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      German word for teaspoon per googling it on the bing: Teelöffel Seems like the obvious abbreviation for that is TL, so it's a joke on cross-language abbreviation collision.
  - tux1968 4y ago
    TL – Teelöffel (teaspoon, unit of measurement)
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    TL is the abbreviation for the unit teaspoon in German, the way ts is the abbreviation for teaspoon in English.
- nophunphil 4y ago

zero_shift 4y ago

> I haven’t tried Solid, but Svelte has already paid considerable dividends for our team. Frontend feature development pace is faster, the code is generally leaner, and the developers love working with it. Is that just down to Svelte, though? Or is it the greenfield effect? Projects always fly quickly at first, when the code is fresh and unconstrained, and you're building the basics. My concern would be when things get complicated and you have to debug Svelte's binding magic - and I have very bad memories doing that in Angular and Knockout.

candiddevmike 4y ago
I would argue it's 100% greenfield effect. A rewrite fixes all the things but introduces new problems. I would bet the OP could've achieved the same effect by figuring out what's wrong with their codebase (which honestly is easier for an outsider to do than someone who has worked on it everyday). And I would caution against converting anything to a non JSX or hyperscript language (like svelte or vue), you don't want to tie your entire view to some HTML-like DSL IMO.
- nophunphil 4y ago
  To clarify, this was new development — not the process of rebuilding of an existing app. For that reason, the greenfield development was indeed simpler. That being said, it’s been one year and making changes to the Svelte application is (in the developers’ opinions) easier than our set of comparably-sized React applications. Of course, all of this is specific to our team members’ skillsets, the application complexity, etc.
  - zero_shift 4y ago
    That's interesting. 12 months is still very early though, unless it's a project with a lot of throughput.
CitrusFruits 4y ago
I can confirm Svelte is way easier, leaner, and quicker to work with than React. The exception is, of course, the library support, which is a huge drawback and would make me cautious of using it in a business setting for another year or two.

egeozcan 4y ago

I'm also a TL (which makes me a teaspoon here in Germany, which I like more than the tech lead title). I understand how the development can be faster with Svelte, but ecosystem argument really hits home. You'd get to 80% with Svelte perhaps much faster than React, but that missing library for, say, drag-and-drop makes that last 20% itself plus "hey let's develop our own drag-and-drop library in-house which should be easy and opinionated and maybe it gets open-sourced" (it will be hard, with crazy high budget, as it will try to cover many use-cases you will never have and it still won't be open-sourced because now it's your "core competency" and five months later someone will realize your component has terrible a11y and etc. and one million bug fixes later it is a monster code-base that none wants to touch and maybe rewrite? oh here we go again).

eatonphil 4y ago
What is a teaspoon?
- wyclif 4y ago
  Yeah, I also didn't get the 'teaspoon' reference.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    German word for teaspoon per googling it on the bing: Teelöffel Seems like the obvious abbreviation for that is TL, so it's a joke on cross-language abbreviation collision.
- tux1968 4y ago
  TL – Teelöffel (teaspoon, unit of measurement)
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  TL is the abbreviation for the unit teaspoon in German, the way ts is the abbreviation for teaspoon in English.
nophunphil 4y ago