6 ms·

I honestly can't wait for the day I wake up and everyone hates React as much as me. I'd also settle for people just forgetting it for something better.

awkii 2y ago
What is it about React that you hate? React has been the near defacto framework for frontend development for a decade now [1]. Like it or not, it's not going away anytime soon. [1] https://2023.stateofjs.com/en-US/libraries/front-end-frameworks/ https://2023.stateofjs.com/en-US/libraries/front-end-framewo...
- FractalHQ 2y ago
  As a Svelte / vanilla TS dev, I hate React because looking at it makes me feel like I’m drowning in obtuse, leaky abstractions, none of which feel necessary and all of which are required to do _anything_ at all.
- recursive 2y ago
  Another react hater here. Here are some of my beefs. * Components don't have exposed identities, but component state is based on identity. Secretly they're fibers. * Everything is treated as if it's immutable. Reference equality is used to infer no changes. Working with array-based state, or almost anything really, is awkward and unnecessarily verbose. Spread all the things. * The rules of hooks. These are just implementation constraints based on the rest of the design decisions of react. * You can't use symbols as keys. This is small, but particularly irksome for me. * The smallest unit of UI change is the component render function. * Effect dependencies need to be listed explicitly. There are more.
  - apsurd 2y ago
    > Everything is treated as if it's immutable [...] Immutability is a great callout; frontend ecosystem is quite divisive on it. For my flavor, as React exploded, redux and the advanced state management frameworks came and made everything bananas[1]. "It solves real problems for advanced apps"; maybe but I could never shake that these problems are self-inflicted. There's a mathematical functional purity that's nerd-snipe worthy; but reactivity with mutation observers just seems to model the real world of UIs better. Anyway, https://mobx.js.org/README.html https://mobx.js.org/README.html is the exact opposite take: mutate your state! Subscribe to changes to your heart's content. The divisiveness is real, it's what makes staying up to date exhausting. [1] Come on, no one seriously thinks "bind action creators" made intuitive, ergonomic sense.
    - recursive 2y ago
      Mobx is cool. Nice to see some other mutation enjoyers. I also made my own thing[1] called "mutraction" (portmanteau of "mutate" and "tracking") based on this premise that uses jsx and mutation. I mostly made it prove that it could be made and to understand how it would work. [1] https://github.com/tomtheisen/mutraction https://github.com/tomtheisen/mutraction
apsurd 2y ago
why do you hate it? i loved react when it came out, it was magnitude improvement for rapid prototyping. jsx as an idea seems ridiculous, but in practice, might as well make everything js and use the programming language's full power—otherwise you get pseudo-code-in-html. html directives will never be a full programming language, I can't understand why frameworks go down this path, repeatedly! "fuck it, everything is javascript" is react's great insight, for interactive applications. The frontend ecosystem overall, i find very exhausting, yes. but that's not on react. What don't you like about it?
- recursive 2y ago
  > "fuck it, everything is javascript" is react's great insight, for interactive applications. I'd argue that jsx was react's great insight. But maybe that's the same thing. Anyway yes. But unfortunately, you can't use react without using the rest of its insights, such as all data must be immutable, and DOM updates are based on reconciliation. > The frontend ecosystem overall, i find very exhausting, yes. but that's not on react. That's true. React has more than enough of its own problems though.
  - elif 2y ago
    jsx is handy but clearly react's 'great insight' if it were to be so reduced, is implicit state management.
    - recursive 2y ago
      If by implicit state management, you're including the abomination that is `useState`, I could not possibly disagree any harder.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I despise JSX as well. Simply because no one is able to handle if else and conditionals in a readable non spaghetti way. Every time I see {condition && <Component />} or {condition ? <ThisComponent /> : <ThatComponent />} I die a little bit inside. In addition to that people to get around these things will do helper functions within the component itself e.g. {renderSomething()} This ends up inside of the component being really unreadable and spaghetti where you have to jump up and down everywhere. I prefer VueJS or Svelte much more, but unfortunately due to its popularity I am stuck with React.
meiraleal 2y ago
After 10 years I also hate the current incarnation of it.

awkii 2y ago

What is it about React that you hate? React has been the near defacto framework for frontend development for a decade now [1]. Like it or not, it's not going away anytime soon. [1] https://2023.stateofjs.com/en-US/libraries/front-end-frameworks/ https://2023.stateofjs.com/en-US/libraries/front-end-framewo...

FractalHQ 2y ago
As a Svelte / vanilla TS dev, I hate React because looking at it makes me feel like I’m drowning in obtuse, leaky abstractions, none of which feel necessary and all of which are required to do _anything_ at all.
recursive 2y ago
Another react hater here. Here are some of my beefs. * Components don't have exposed identities, but component state is based on identity. Secretly they're fibers. * Everything is treated as if it's immutable. Reference equality is used to infer no changes. Working with array-based state, or almost anything really, is awkward and unnecessarily verbose. Spread all the things. * The rules of hooks. These are just implementation constraints based on the rest of the design decisions of react. * You can't use symbols as keys. This is small, but particularly irksome for me. * The smallest unit of UI change is the component render function. * Effect dependencies need to be listed explicitly. There are more.
- apsurd 2y ago
  > Everything is treated as if it's immutable [...] Immutability is a great callout; frontend ecosystem is quite divisive on it. For my flavor, as React exploded, redux and the advanced state management frameworks came and made everything bananas[1]. "It solves real problems for advanced apps"; maybe but I could never shake that these problems are self-inflicted. There's a mathematical functional purity that's nerd-snipe worthy; but reactivity with mutation observers just seems to model the real world of UIs better. Anyway, https://mobx.js.org/README.html https://mobx.js.org/README.html is the exact opposite take: mutate your state! Subscribe to changes to your heart's content. The divisiveness is real, it's what makes staying up to date exhausting. [1] Come on, no one seriously thinks "bind action creators" made intuitive, ergonomic sense.
  - recursive 2y ago
    Mobx is cool. Nice to see some other mutation enjoyers. I also made my own thing[1] called "mutraction" (portmanteau of "mutate" and "tracking") based on this premise that uses jsx and mutation. I mostly made it prove that it could be made and to understand how it would work. [1] https://github.com/tomtheisen/mutraction https://github.com/tomtheisen/mutraction

apsurd 2y ago

why do you hate it? i loved react when it came out, it was magnitude improvement for rapid prototyping. jsx as an idea seems ridiculous, but in practice, might as well make everything js and use the programming language's full power—otherwise you get pseudo-code-in-html. html directives will never be a full programming language, I can't understand why frameworks go down this path, repeatedly! "fuck it, everything is javascript" is react's great insight, for interactive applications. The frontend ecosystem overall, i find very exhausting, yes. but that's not on react. What don't you like about it?

recursive 2y ago
> "fuck it, everything is javascript" is react's great insight, for interactive applications. I'd argue that jsx was react's great insight. But maybe that's the same thing. Anyway yes. But unfortunately, you can't use react without using the rest of its insights, such as all data must be immutable, and DOM updates are based on reconciliation. > The frontend ecosystem overall, i find very exhausting, yes. but that's not on react. That's true. React has more than enough of its own problems though.
- elif 2y ago
  jsx is handy but clearly react's 'great insight' if it were to be so reduced, is implicit state management.
  - recursive 2y ago
    If by implicit state management, you're including the abomination that is `useState`, I could not possibly disagree any harder.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  I despise JSX as well. Simply because no one is able to handle if else and conditionals in a readable non spaghetti way. Every time I see {condition && <Component />} or {condition ? <ThisComponent /> : <ThatComponent />} I die a little bit inside. In addition to that people to get around these things will do helper functions within the component itself e.g. {renderSomething()} This ends up inside of the component being really unreadable and spaghetti where you have to jump up and down everywhere. I prefer VueJS or Svelte much more, but unfortunately due to its popularity I am stuck with React.

meiraleal 2y ago

After 10 years I also hate the current incarnation of it.