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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 attempti

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.
  - evantbyrne 3y ago
    I dunno man, I don't consider browser APIs to be a failure. In fact, it's probably the most popular UI toolkit in existence by a wide margin. It being a collection of evolving standards doesn't count against it in my book.
    - corethree 3y ago
      Many bad things are popular. Java, C++, JavaScript. Popularity doesn't preclude something from being shit. The front end UI isn't a collection of evolving standards. It's the same standard with more and more cruft added on top. HTML wasn't designed for what we are doing with it now. Each additional layer... css, JavaScript, the dom, typescript, react, is a new layer over an old thing. It's like never buying a new car just modifying your old one from the 50s to stay up to date. That's why the entire front end API feels so bad. It feels disorganized with complexity that exceeds necessity. The complexity of the spec even took years for browsers to get right. This is not a sign of good design. It's a sign of endless designs layered on top of each other all in vain effort to modernize everything and keep it backwards compatible.
      - evantbyrne 3y ago
        There's a difference between being popular, and being the most popular thing in a category ever and keeping that title for decades with no serious challengers. The browser as we know it with the DOM is the latter. Maybe that will change with new APIs that hook into the canvas, but we're still a ways off from that and I suspect the DOM will remain in the picture even then.
        corethree 3y ago
        C++ also has had that category for decades. Longer than browsers. Rust is challenging that hold right now but it's far from winning. You're right the dom will remain in the picture for a long time. Doesn't change the fact that it's horribly designed.

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.
- evantbyrne 3y ago
  I dunno man, I don't consider browser APIs to be a failure. In fact, it's probably the most popular UI toolkit in existence by a wide margin. It being a collection of evolving standards doesn't count against it in my book.
  - corethree 3y ago
    Many bad things are popular. Java, C++, JavaScript. Popularity doesn't preclude something from being shit. The front end UI isn't a collection of evolving standards. It's the same standard with more and more cruft added on top. HTML wasn't designed for what we are doing with it now. Each additional layer... css, JavaScript, the dom, typescript, react, is a new layer over an old thing. It's like never buying a new car just modifying your old one from the 50s to stay up to date. That's why the entire front end API feels so bad. It feels disorganized with complexity that exceeds necessity. The complexity of the spec even took years for browsers to get right. This is not a sign of good design. It's a sign of endless designs layered on top of each other all in vain effort to modernize everything and keep it backwards compatible.
    - evantbyrne 3y ago
      There's a difference between being popular, and being the most popular thing in a category ever and keeping that title for decades with no serious challengers. The browser as we know it with the DOM is the latter. Maybe that will change with new APIs that hook into the canvas, but we're still a ways off from that and I suspect the DOM will remain in the picture even then.
      - corethree 3y ago
        C++ also has had that category for decades. Longer than browsers. Rust is challenging that hold right now but it's far from winning. You're right the dom will remain in the picture for a long time. Doesn't change the fact that it's horribly designed.