4 ms·

Im not a front end dev but from what Ive read it seems like ES6 and native web components solve a lot of the problems react was originally trying to solve. So

Im not a front end dev but from what Ive read it seems like ES6 and native web components solve a lot of the problems react was originally trying to solve. So is react losing the plot or just naturally it's ideas are being folded into the browser natively?

sesm 2y ago
The number 1 problem React was created to solve is synchronizing state with UI (FB chat originally). Web Components don't provide any solution to this problem.
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  Any time I try not to use React and just go vanilla, the main frustration is how much time I waste being imperative with UI state and event listeners and such. I don’t fricking want to manually manage all the pieces! That’s the least interesting part of developing software.
  - gedy 2y ago
    Yeah that's the challenge with front end opinions - there's still a lot of folks who want to write code that way (even when using frameworks), then bitch about "too much magic!", etc. I'm with you that I do not want to deal with all that, give me a mental model of state->UI and I'm good.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    I agree, but I would also say that it took a loooooong time IMO for react to get good global state management. IMO Redux was generally a disaster - a big overcomplication with lots of unnecessary conceptual pieces - actions/reducers/selectors etc., and I've yet to see a Redux front end that didn't turn into an incomprehensible mess. All I really wanted was just `useState()` but for a piece of state that can be shared between components. I think that exists now in easy-to-use libraries like jotai and zustand, but it certainly took a while to get there. In retrospect I don't think this is that uncommon (overcomplicating something at first and then just simplifying it to the few core things people want) - graybeards like me may remember some of the original EJB horrors.
deleted 2y ago
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skrebbel 2y ago
This is not true. Web Components are extremely barebones and featureless. There’s no built-in way to do data dependencies, reactivity, etc. They’re also quirky, eg theres properties and attributes and they sort of correspond but haha not really. And because they’re globally registered, even composability works less well than in React. All of this has “just worked” with React since it very first release. Web Components are great for distributing components. Not for building the internals of an app. In fact, for moderately complex web components it often pays to build the internals of the web component with a framework like React or Svelte.

sesm 2y ago

The number 1 problem React was created to solve is synchronizing state with UI (FB chat originally). Web Components don't provide any solution to this problem.

Waterluvian 2y ago
Any time I try not to use React and just go vanilla, the main frustration is how much time I waste being imperative with UI state and event listeners and such. I don’t fricking want to manually manage all the pieces! That’s the least interesting part of developing software.
- gedy 2y ago
  Yeah that's the challenge with front end opinions - there's still a lot of folks who want to write code that way (even when using frameworks), then bitch about "too much magic!", etc. I'm with you that I do not want to deal with all that, give me a mental model of state->UI and I'm good.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  I agree, but I would also say that it took a loooooong time IMO for react to get good global state management. IMO Redux was generally a disaster - a big overcomplication with lots of unnecessary conceptual pieces - actions/reducers/selectors etc., and I've yet to see a Redux front end that didn't turn into an incomprehensible mess. All I really wanted was just `useState()` but for a piece of state that can be shared between components. I think that exists now in easy-to-use libraries like jotai and zustand, but it certainly took a while to get there. In retrospect I don't think this is that uncommon (overcomplicating something at first and then just simplifying it to the few core things people want) - graybeards like me may remember some of the original EJB horrors.

deleted 2y ago

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skrebbel 2y ago

This is not true. Web Components are extremely barebones and featureless. There’s no built-in way to do data dependencies, reactivity, etc. They’re also quirky, eg theres properties and attributes and they sort of correspond but haha not really. And because they’re globally registered, even composability works less well than in React. All of this has “just worked” with React since it very first release. Web Components are great for distributing components. Not for building the internals of an app. In fact, for moderately complex web components it often pays to build the internals of the web component with a framework like React or Svelte.