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I'll continue using vanilla React, for the same reason I use Java: it's reached the coveted "boring technology" status where it's mature, stable, fast enough, a

I'll continue using vanilla React, for the same reason I use Java: it's reached the coveted "boring technology" status where it's mature, stable, fast enough, and has a huge community, resources, and ecosystem. I won't let go of that easily. However, this is a pretty epic rant nonetheless.

MarcelOlsz 2y ago
You're going to love Vue. Took me about half an hour to switch and be productive and never looked back. I've switched multiple teams/devs to it as well. If not just for the devtools experience. I switched right before all the messy React stuff started getting released.
- aerhardt 2y ago
  But why would OP or I switch away from React when we believe it's mature, stable, fast enough, and has a huge community, resources, and ecosystem? And perhaps most important of all: it's the tool we know.
  - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
    I only responded because they said they're using vanilla React which for some reason in my head instantly translated to "old version of React before it started sucking", and replied accordingly. >But why would OP or I switch away from React when we believe it's mature, stable, fast enough, and has a huge community, resources, and ecosystem? Yeah fair enough.
    - lopatin 2y ago
      By vanilla React I meant that I don't use the new Next.js / SSR stuff and instead build a JS file.
      - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
        Yeah I only realized that later :P
      - floydnoel 2y ago
        what do you use for routing? I built Routerino for just exactly this purpose, to use with vanilla React. maybe it'll be useful for you! https://www.npmjs.com/package/routerino https://www.npmjs.com/package/routerino
        lopatin 2y ago
        I actually use the history API. I've been thinking about modernizing by replacing it with React Router. I'll check out Routerino also.
        Atotalnoob 2y ago
        React router is a nightmare. Lots of massive paradigm shifts with little backwards compatibility. I’ve gone through like 3-5 times where there is some massive changes between versions. Right now they are pushing some new routing mechanisms…
  - xcrunner529 2y ago
    Because it’s not and people hate these sites…I’m sorry…”apps” you make.
    - lucsky 2y ago
      Right, and people would obviously love those same apps if they were written with Vue instead. Of course.
      - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
        I think that user prefers just HTML.
      - xcrunner529 2y ago
        They’ll love something that loads fast and feels fast even if they’re on a cellular connection at the gas station. Such as me trying to load a gas station app to pay at the pump in a rural area and waiting forever for each step due to the size.
    - phist_mcgee 2y ago
      I'd say some SWEs hate the sites. The majority of laypeople don't care at all.
    - aerhardt 2y ago
      Aren't you brave, presumptuously insulting random people on the internet like that behind a fake name?
- zmmmmm 2y ago
  I'm having trouble forgiving Vue for the backwards compatibility issues and short support period from Vue 2.x => Vue 3.x. I'm now faced with unnecessary cost to upgrade line of business apps built with Vue that in full maintenance mode but now have critical security vulnerabilities popping up in scanners with no way to fix them other than large scale code migration. I saw they are now dropping support for Vue 2 even in the DevTools, so even migration is going to be harder, if we can't easily introspect the pages we are migrating. I'm suspecting they are going to drop backwards compatibility again in the near future by deprecating support for the options API - leaving me with another headache.
  - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
    That's actually fair and my one gripe with Vue, and I just spent the past week and a half porting over my old project that I wanted to resurrect. If they screw with my vue3 using composition API then I'll dust off my pitchfork.
    - yurishimo 2y ago
      Week and a half… sounds nice :,) Has gitlab finished upgrading yet? Last time I checked they spent 2+ years and that’s with codemod tools and super smart engineers. At work, I spent a month upgrading one project to work with the compatibility build and we’ve been slowly migrating for the past 18 months. After the end of this year, we should be out of the woods for that project but then we have 3 more so… Luckily, Evan has said that he has zero interest in fracturing the community again and I believe him. The new architecture of Vue 3 also makes it very easy to adopt almost any new paradigm into Vue as evidenced by the numerous demos Evan has made to compare Vue to other JS frameworks like Svelte and Solid.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    What I like about React is that generally speaking, it has rock solid backwards compatibility support (class components are still supported for example), presumably due to Meta using it at scale such that they cannot scrap everything immediately. Vue, being not used in any large company, does not have the same sense of responsibility to preserve backwards compatibility, it seems. This has its pros and cons though but for many people, backwards compatibility is a big deal.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  I started with Vue and switched to React, because of better library and TypeScript support. Every other framework pales in comparison to React due to its ecosystem, and I'm not gonna spend time building new packages to bridge that gap when I have my own work I need to get done, so I'll just use React and npm install what I need.
  - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
    What gap needed bridging for you?
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      Back when I switched, I was looking for a good drag and drop library as well as a node based diagramming library. React Flow for the latter is best in class, and it's simply unavailable for other frameworks.
- hamandcheese 2y ago
  To me, the best part of react/jsx is that if you know HTML, and you know JavaScript, you can easily write JSX. I'm primarily a backend engineer, but I grokked JSX pretty much instantly. Anything in scope in JS is available in the JSX. Vue templates are, well, yet another funny little template language. The hello world example already seems way too magical. Just let me use the language I already know.
  - crabmusket 2y ago
    Fun fact, you can use JSX with Vue and get the benefit of its built-in reactivity framework. I've done this for small prototypes and it's quite nice. My favourite part was that without .vue files, I could compile the whole app using esbuild instead of fiddling with webpack (yes yes I will try Vite one day).
- phist_mcgee 2y ago
  I think i'm passed splitting html, js and css into separate files. Having logic, presentation and styling all in one spot addressable via js and jsx feels so much more ergonomic for apps of reasonable complexity. I will say though that solidjs seems like an improvement on react though.
smrtinsert 2y ago
Java is still getting great support and great new features every release while maintaining backward compat
davedx 2y ago
Amen. I adopted react for the first time in around 2014. It’s now “boring” and various predictable groups of people are desperate to replace it with /something/, while I’m getting on with my job of delivering software using a nice set of reasonably standardized tools, not having problems hiring, and just generally enjoying life. Long may the reign of typescript, nodejs and react continue.
- phist_mcgee 2y ago
  My god.. A sensible take?
ninkendo 2y ago
Maybe it’s time I learn it… Last time I looked at react was 2016 or so and every tutorial was referencing some different mutually incompatible version of some component (router, redux, flux, some other alphabet soup) and everyone had their own list of essential ingredients in a basic hello world app. I came away from the whole experience thinking here’s an ecosystem that needs to mature another 10 years or so before I want to even look at it (I’m not a frontend person, it’s all academic to me.) Is there a consensus on any of it yet? How to do routing, state, builds, etc? Or is there still as many combinations of components as there are tutorials?
- plantwallshoe 2y ago
  IME there is a general consensus: Routing: react router (not very good imo but widely accepted and good enough) state: No libraries. Just use “useState” and if necessary “useReducer” Builds: vite Then pick a query caching library so you don’t need to treat fetched data like its application state… ReactQuery is widely accepted and very good. Apollo if you’re using graphql
  - CSSer 2y ago
    I'd throw in the occasional context provider store. However, the point absolutely stands that most likely don't need a state library in React anymore unless you're learning it to maintain an older codebase.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    > Routing: react router (not very good imo but widely accepted and good enough) Unnecessarily complicated and confusing, with odd choices in the most recent version (that IIRC are not backwards compatible). I went with wouter after searching around. > state: No libraries. Just use “useState” and if necessary “useReducer” useState is the same thing as the old setState, and useReducer not much different - they're not sufficient for building an app because you just revert back to the original state antipattern, prop drilling.
    - plantwallshoe 2y ago
hmeh 2y ago
Have you heard of HTML, CSS and forms? They are even more boring, more mature, more stable, often faster, have a huge community, massive resources and ecosystem. React is even built on one of these technologies!
- lopatin 2y ago
  Which one of these technologies is React built on top of?
  - hmeh 2y ago
    HTML, specifically react-dom. It’s built with JavaScript
    - eastbound 2y ago
      Back in 2013 there was a nifty little library that everyone, absolutely everyone ended up using called https://vanilla-js.com https://vanilla-js.com. They even had a size calculator depending on the features, amounting to zero bytes every time (25 bytes gzipped).
slmjkdbtl 2y ago
Java is way way better than React (hooks) in this regard. Boring tech is good, but React is the opposite of boring tech, it innovates new way to write software, but ends up in disaster.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

MarcelOlsz 2y ago

You're going to love Vue. Took me about half an hour to switch and be productive and never looked back. I've switched multiple teams/devs to it as well. If not just for the devtools experience. I switched right before all the messy React stuff started getting released.

aerhardt 2y ago
But why would OP or I switch away from React when we believe it's mature, stable, fast enough, and has a huge community, resources, and ecosystem? And perhaps most important of all: it's the tool we know.
- MarcelOlsz 2y ago
  I only responded because they said they're using vanilla React which for some reason in my head instantly translated to "old version of React before it started sucking", and replied accordingly. >But why would OP or I switch away from React when we believe it's mature, stable, fast enough, and has a huge community, resources, and ecosystem? Yeah fair enough.
  - lopatin 2y ago
    By vanilla React I meant that I don't use the new Next.js / SSR stuff and instead build a JS file.
    - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
      Yeah I only realized that later :P
    - floydnoel 2y ago
      what do you use for routing? I built Routerino for just exactly this purpose, to use with vanilla React. maybe it'll be useful for you! https://www.npmjs.com/package/routerino https://www.npmjs.com/package/routerino
      - lopatin 2y ago
        I actually use the history API. I've been thinking about modernizing by replacing it with React Router. I'll check out Routerino also.
        Atotalnoob 2y ago
        React router is a nightmare. Lots of massive paradigm shifts with little backwards compatibility. I’ve gone through like 3-5 times where there is some massive changes between versions. Right now they are pushing some new routing mechanisms…
- xcrunner529 2y ago
  Because it’s not and people hate these sites…I’m sorry…”apps” you make.
  - lucsky 2y ago
    Right, and people would obviously love those same apps if they were written with Vue instead. Of course.
    - MarcelOlsz 2y ago
      I think that user prefers just HTML.
    - xcrunner529 2y ago
      They’ll love something that loads fast and feels fast even if they’re on a cellular connection at the gas station. Such as me trying to load a gas station app to pay at the pump in a rural area and waiting forever for each step due to the size.
  - phist_mcgee 2y ago
    I'd say some SWEs hate the sites. The majority of laypeople don't care at all.
  - aerhardt 2y ago
    Aren't you brave, presumptuously insulting random people on the internet like that behind a fake name?
zmmmmm 2y ago
I'm having trouble forgiving Vue for the backwards compatibility issues and short support period from Vue 2.x => Vue 3.x. I'm now faced with unnecessary cost to upgrade line of business apps built with Vue that in full maintenance mode but now have critical security vulnerabilities popping up in scanners with no way to fix them other than large scale code migration. I saw they are now dropping support for Vue 2 even in the DevTools, so even migration is going to be harder, if we can't easily introspect the pages we are migrating. I'm suspecting they are going to drop backwards compatibility again in the near future by deprecating support for the options API - leaving me with another headache.
- MarcelOlsz 2y ago
  That's actually fair and my one gripe with Vue, and I just spent the past week and a half porting over my old project that I wanted to resurrect. If they screw with my vue3 using composition API then I'll dust off my pitchfork.
  - yurishimo 2y ago
    Week and a half… sounds nice :,) Has gitlab finished upgrading yet? Last time I checked they spent 2+ years and that’s with codemod tools and super smart engineers. At work, I spent a month upgrading one project to work with the compatibility build and we’ve been slowly migrating for the past 18 months. After the end of this year, we should be out of the woods for that project but then we have 3 more so… Luckily, Evan has said that he has zero interest in fracturing the community again and I believe him. The new architecture of Vue 3 also makes it very easy to adopt almost any new paradigm into Vue as evidenced by the numerous demos Evan has made to compare Vue to other JS frameworks like Svelte and Solid.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  What I like about React is that generally speaking, it has rock solid backwards compatibility support (class components are still supported for example), presumably due to Meta using it at scale such that they cannot scrap everything immediately. Vue, being not used in any large company, does not have the same sense of responsibility to preserve backwards compatibility, it seems. This has its pros and cons though but for many people, backwards compatibility is a big deal.
satvikpendem 2y ago
I started with Vue and switched to React, because of better library and TypeScript support. Every other framework pales in comparison to React due to its ecosystem, and I'm not gonna spend time building new packages to bridge that gap when I have my own work I need to get done, so I'll just use React and npm install what I need.
- MarcelOlsz 2y ago
  What gap needed bridging for you?
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    Back when I switched, I was looking for a good drag and drop library as well as a node based diagramming library. React Flow for the latter is best in class, and it's simply unavailable for other frameworks.
hamandcheese 2y ago
To me, the best part of react/jsx is that if you know HTML, and you know JavaScript, you can easily write JSX. I'm primarily a backend engineer, but I grokked JSX pretty much instantly. Anything in scope in JS is available in the JSX. Vue templates are, well, yet another funny little template language. The hello world example already seems way too magical. Just let me use the language I already know.
- crabmusket 2y ago
  Fun fact, you can use JSX with Vue and get the benefit of its built-in reactivity framework. I've done this for small prototypes and it's quite nice. My favourite part was that without .vue files, I could compile the whole app using esbuild instead of fiddling with webpack (yes yes I will try Vite one day).
phist_mcgee 2y ago
I think i'm passed splitting html, js and css into separate files. Having logic, presentation and styling all in one spot addressable via js and jsx feels so much more ergonomic for apps of reasonable complexity. I will say though that solidjs seems like an improvement on react though.

smrtinsert 2y ago

Java is still getting great support and great new features every release while maintaining backward compat

davedx 2y ago

Amen. I adopted react for the first time in around 2014. It’s now “boring” and various predictable groups of people are desperate to replace it with /something/, while I’m getting on with my job of delivering software using a nice set of reasonably standardized tools, not having problems hiring, and just generally enjoying life. Long may the reign of typescript, nodejs and react continue.

phist_mcgee 2y ago
My god.. A sensible take?

ninkendo 2y ago

Maybe it’s time I learn it… Last time I looked at react was 2016 or so and every tutorial was referencing some different mutually incompatible version of some component (router, redux, flux, some other alphabet soup) and everyone had their own list of essential ingredients in a basic hello world app. I came away from the whole experience thinking here’s an ecosystem that needs to mature another 10 years or so before I want to even look at it (I’m not a frontend person, it’s all academic to me.) Is there a consensus on any of it yet? How to do routing, state, builds, etc? Or is there still as many combinations of components as there are tutorials?

plantwallshoe 2y ago
IME there is a general consensus: Routing: react router (not very good imo but widely accepted and good enough) state: No libraries. Just use “useState” and if necessary “useReducer” Builds: vite Then pick a query caching library so you don’t need to treat fetched data like its application state… ReactQuery is widely accepted and very good. Apollo if you’re using graphql
- CSSer 2y ago
  I'd throw in the occasional context provider store. However, the point absolutely stands that most likely don't need a state library in React anymore unless you're learning it to maintain an older codebase.
- Izkata 2y ago
  > Routing: react router (not very good imo but widely accepted and good enough) Unnecessarily complicated and confusing, with odd choices in the most recent version (that IIRC are not backwards compatible). I went with wouter after searching around. > state: No libraries. Just use “useState” and if necessary “useReducer” useState is the same thing as the old setState, and useReducer not much different - they're not sufficient for building an app because you just revert back to the original state antipattern, prop drilling.
  - plantwallshoe 2y ago

hmeh 2y ago

Have you heard of HTML, CSS and forms? They are even more boring, more mature, more stable, often faster, have a huge community, massive resources and ecosystem. React is even built on one of these technologies!

lopatin 2y ago
Which one of these technologies is React built on top of?
- hmeh 2y ago
  HTML, specifically react-dom. It’s built with JavaScript
  - eastbound 2y ago
    Back in 2013 there was a nifty little library that everyone, absolutely everyone ended up using called https://vanilla-js.com https://vanilla-js.com. They even had a size calculator depending on the features, amounting to zero bytes every time (25 bytes gzipped).

slmjkdbtl 2y ago

Java is way way better than React (hooks) in this regard. Boring tech is good, but React is the opposite of boring tech, it innovates new way to write software, but ends up in disaster.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]