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React was designed to solve all these problems. Now these problems are used to solve react. Programming, like life, is a flat circle.

robinhood 3y ago
No, it was designed to address problems that were not solvable by the then-current state of simple technologies.
- corethree 3y ago
  All the things React does is doable with plain javascript. There aren't any extra features added. React was designed to address complexities. It is an abstraction. Now we want to go backwards. Getting rid of the abstraction to get rid of complexities. But getting rid of complexities was the whole point of react.
  - evantbyrne 3y ago
    Agree to disagree. Building a React frontend is extremely complicated compared to server rendering HTML with progressive enhancement. It introduces state management to the frontend for even the most basic tasks, which is not something most web applications benefit from. When I built my CI/CD platform (Beaker Studio), the React portion probably added a solid 50% extra time to the project and really did nothing for it functionally.
    - corethree 3y ago
      No you agree. You're just not understanding. The purpose of react was to simplify the complexities of front end web development. Just like the purpose of the DOM was to do the same thing. Now this article is pointing to going back to the DOM for a similar purpose. The cycle on the great circle of life occurs because we are repeatedly attempting and failing to fulfill the singular purpose of building a clean API for ui construction. The dom was a failure, react was a failure. What do you think going back to the DOM will do?
      - evantbyrne 3y ago
        > The dom was a failure, react was a failure. What do you think going back to the DOM will do? It'll give me that extra 50% effort back. Although I've used React for years, I have never been on the bandwagon. Having built many React SPAs with different teams at this point I'm confident it has always been a step backwards.
        corethree 3y ago
        Yeah but react was designed to address a problem. I don't know if you recall but people were complaining a lot back then. There were tons of frameworks attempting to solve the issue. Only react came out in top. By stepping back we are just going back to the same problem. The next abstraction will attempt to solve the same problem again. Very likely in a similar way react failed, the next abstraction will introduce new issues and there will be another trend to go backwards again.
        evantbyrne 3y ago
        I don't have fond memories of early React; It was extremely verbose not having hooks until relatively recently, build tools were necessary but a horrible mess, and it was falsely advertised as being faster than vanilla JS. Hype around Facebook carried React. It has improved massively since then, but so has vanilla JS. I don't see a transition away from React as a step back at all. React made rendering new elements client-side and attaching events cleaner, but that was never a hard problem per se and we have web components now.
        corethree 3y ago
        I never said a transition back from react is not an improvement. Again you're not getting it. I'm saying we had problems with vanilla js initially and we've never moved forward. The fact that we are going back to vanilla js is reopening all the old issues are a sign that we are in stagnation. Nothing has changed. It's a circle of attempting to improve and failing.
  - infamia 3y ago
    I think this is because HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, browser DOM implementations, and networks have all gotten better. Whereas the complexity/churn around JS tooling (and to a lesser extent React) has grown. Additionally, the overuse and abuse of React, to the point people are making largely static sites with React, which is largely a total waste of time. This has caused people to take a second look at their options, which should be viewed as totally natural. I don't think of it as "going backwards", so much as reassessing and questioning the tools we are using and using the best one at hand. I don't know of anyone who suggests using hypermedia for all applications, just use it where appropriate and use React when simpler technology falls short.
pphysch 3y ago
How was React designed to "avoid the build step" or "make View Source useful"?
- corethree 3y ago
  React was designed as an abstraction layer on top of the source. Why? Because the source was too complex. Now we want to expose the source and get rid of the abstraction... Why? Because the abstraction is too complex. Recurse and repeat.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    There won't be a repeat. WASM is a clearly better compilation target than JS, and browsers have greatly improved the "vanilla" DX. TypeScript ecosystem is the Enterprise Java of this decade, except it's built on shakier foundations, i.e. you can run some ancient JVM, but good luck relying on an ancient browser version & node dependencies. There will probably still be tons of job-security in the next couple decades, but it's not forward-looking technologically.
    - corethree 3y ago
      Building a language and a framework on top of wasm is just another abstraction. Ironically you mention the jvm which further proves the existence of the flat circle. We've done it before... We will do it again.
  - cphoover 3y ago
    Yes, I remember when Microsoft FrontPage was the go to wysiwyg editor for web development along with Dreamweaver most styles were added inline. At some point wysiwyg editors fell out of favor as they generated both unmaintainable styles and markup. Style sheets took hold and the insanity that was inline styles were dropped in favor of external style sheets. Today we have tailwinds.css and inline styles are coming back in vogue. Wysiwyg editors are coming back in the form of code generators that convert designs into react components. This author is even a proponent of inline event handlers which were the standard way of doing things before JavaScript really became a powerful language and added "addEventlistener". Flat circle repeated over and over again. Part of me wonders if these authors are just too young to remember those days. Otherwise why wouldn't they mention the historical context when writing these kind of articles? It's funny when younger people espouse these new ideas as new and revolutionary when really they are a return to older patterns that fell out of style for whatever reason and are now being resold with different packaging.
ativzzz 3y ago
How poignant - another post on the front page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236607 Top quote in the article > I don't think computing is a real field. It acts like a pop culture, it deals in fads, and it doesn't even know its own roots. And worse than that it does not know about the really good things that were done in the past. — Alan Kay
- corethree 3y ago
  Really good quote. Pretty much sums up computing. Here's the thing, everyone doesn't realize it's just a bunch of fads. People think of it as some sort of science where we're just continuously improving and getting better.

robinhood 3y ago

No, it was designed to address problems that were not solvable by the then-current state of simple technologies.

corethree 3y ago
All the things React does is doable with plain javascript. There aren't any extra features added. React was designed to address complexities. It is an abstraction. Now we want to go backwards. Getting rid of the abstraction to get rid of complexities. But getting rid of complexities was the whole point of react.
- evantbyrne 3y ago
  Agree to disagree. Building a React frontend is extremely complicated compared to server rendering HTML with progressive enhancement. It introduces state management to the frontend for even the most basic tasks, which is not something most web applications benefit from. When I built my CI/CD platform (Beaker Studio), the React portion probably added a solid 50% extra time to the project and really did nothing for it functionally.
  - corethree 3y ago
    No you agree. You're just not understanding. The purpose of react was to simplify the complexities of front end web development. Just like the purpose of the DOM was to do the same thing. Now this article is pointing to going back to the DOM for a similar purpose. The cycle on the great circle of life occurs because we are repeatedly attempting and failing to fulfill the singular purpose of building a clean API for ui construction. The dom was a failure, react was a failure. What do you think going back to the DOM will do?
    - evantbyrne 3y ago
      > The dom was a failure, react was a failure. What do you think going back to the DOM will do? It'll give me that extra 50% effort back. Although I've used React for years, I have never been on the bandwagon. Having built many React SPAs with different teams at this point I'm confident it has always been a step backwards.
      - corethree 3y ago
        Yeah but react was designed to address a problem. I don't know if you recall but people were complaining a lot back then. There were tons of frameworks attempting to solve the issue. Only react came out in top. By stepping back we are just going back to the same problem. The next abstraction will attempt to solve the same problem again. Very likely in a similar way react failed, the next abstraction will introduce new issues and there will be another trend to go backwards again.
        evantbyrne 3y ago
        I don't have fond memories of early React; It was extremely verbose not having hooks until relatively recently, build tools were necessary but a horrible mess, and it was falsely advertised as being faster than vanilla JS. Hype around Facebook carried React. It has improved massively since then, but so has vanilla JS. I don't see a transition away from React as a step back at all. React made rendering new elements client-side and attaching events cleaner, but that was never a hard problem per se and we have web components now.
        corethree 3y ago
        I never said a transition back from react is not an improvement. Again you're not getting it. I'm saying we had problems with vanilla js initially and we've never moved forward. The fact that we are going back to vanilla js is reopening all the old issues are a sign that we are in stagnation. Nothing has changed. It's a circle of attempting to improve and failing.
- infamia 3y ago
  I think this is because HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, browser DOM implementations, and networks have all gotten better. Whereas the complexity/churn around JS tooling (and to a lesser extent React) has grown. Additionally, the overuse and abuse of React, to the point people are making largely static sites with React, which is largely a total waste of time. This has caused people to take a second look at their options, which should be viewed as totally natural. I don't think of it as "going backwards", so much as reassessing and questioning the tools we are using and using the best one at hand. I don't know of anyone who suggests using hypermedia for all applications, just use it where appropriate and use React when simpler technology falls short.

pphysch 3y ago

How was React designed to "avoid the build step" or "make View Source useful"?

corethree 3y ago
React was designed as an abstraction layer on top of the source. Why? Because the source was too complex. Now we want to expose the source and get rid of the abstraction... Why? Because the abstraction is too complex. Recurse and repeat.
- pphysch 3y ago
  There won't be a repeat. WASM is a clearly better compilation target than JS, and browsers have greatly improved the "vanilla" DX. TypeScript ecosystem is the Enterprise Java of this decade, except it's built on shakier foundations, i.e. you can run some ancient JVM, but good luck relying on an ancient browser version & node dependencies. There will probably still be tons of job-security in the next couple decades, but it's not forward-looking technologically.
  - corethree 3y ago
    Building a language and a framework on top of wasm is just another abstraction. Ironically you mention the jvm which further proves the existence of the flat circle. We've done it before... We will do it again.
- cphoover 3y ago
  Yes, I remember when Microsoft FrontPage was the go to wysiwyg editor for web development along with Dreamweaver most styles were added inline. At some point wysiwyg editors fell out of favor as they generated both unmaintainable styles and markup. Style sheets took hold and the insanity that was inline styles were dropped in favor of external style sheets. Today we have tailwinds.css and inline styles are coming back in vogue. Wysiwyg editors are coming back in the form of code generators that convert designs into react components. This author is even a proponent of inline event handlers which were the standard way of doing things before JavaScript really became a powerful language and added "addEventlistener". Flat circle repeated over and over again. Part of me wonders if these authors are just too young to remember those days. Otherwise why wouldn't they mention the historical context when writing these kind of articles? It's funny when younger people espouse these new ideas as new and revolutionary when really they are a return to older patterns that fell out of style for whatever reason and are now being resold with different packaging.

ativzzz 3y ago

How poignant - another post on the front page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236607 Top quote in the article > I don't think computing is a real field. It acts like a pop culture, it deals in fads, and it doesn't even know its own roots. And worse than that it does not know about the really good things that were done in the past. — Alan Kay

corethree 3y ago
Really good quote. Pretty much sums up computing. Here's the thing, everyone doesn't realize it's just a bunch of fads. People think of it as some sort of science where we're just continuously improving and getting better.