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>Good luck writing highly interactive apps backend-only! (Like Figma or Google Docs). Even with frameworks like Phoenix and runtimes like WebAssembly, you still

by krapp 2y ago

>Good luck writing highly interactive apps backend-only! (Like Figma or Google Docs). Even with frameworks like Phoenix and runtimes like WebAssembly, you still need a lot of Javascript to get there. That's exactly the point. 99% of websites don't need to be "highly interactive apps" like Figma or Google Docs. The modern JS pipeline and ecosystem exists for those applications, as it was developed by Facebook, Google and the like, but it's far more complex than most people actually need. The baseline for web development shouldn't be "install NPM and node and n frameworks, learn test suits a,b,c and this completely different language." >jQuery solves maybe 10% of the problems I listed, and does that imperatively, so you get in the exact same issues, but with a marginally better interface to the DOM. Which is not even true nowadays, as the js DOM interface got a lot better. I was specifically making a comparison between using JQuery and script tags versus NPM dependencies, but JQuery still solves far more than 10% of the problems most people actually have. Because again, most websites aren't startups trying to optimize to compete against FAANG. >Wait, do you normally write Java with no frameworks? Handle request / responses / queues / threads from scratch? I think you're being purposely obtuse here. People write Java frameworks in Java. It's still programming in Java. You're still expected to understand the Java language to use Java frameworks. Javascript is primarily compiled from other languages which use their own idioms, often imitating far more strictly typed languages. JS devs are primarily people who hate javascript and wish they were using another language, and much of the unnecessary complexity of the modern JS ecosystem exists to capture the labor market by catering to that desire. Which is why "vanilla js" is a phenomenon unique to Javascript. Other ecosystems don't have the same culture of alienation and aversion to actually using their language.

curtisblaine 2y ago
> That's exactly the point. 99% of websites don't need to be "highly interactive apps" like Figma or Google Docs. That's what I said n comments ago. If you don't need a highly interactive app, you can do with HTML and CSS only. > People write Java frameworks in Java. It's still programming in Java. You're still expected to understand the Java language to use Java frameworks. I hate to break it to you, but React is 100% written in javascript and you interact with it writing javascript. It's a library, not even a framework.
curtisblaine 2y ago
> Javascript is primarily compiled from other languages which use their own idioms, often imitating far more strictly typed languages. I'm not sure which languages are you referring to. Typescript? It's Javascript with types (minus enums, which are discouraged). Elm, Purescript, Clojurescript, Gleam? Great languages, but they represent a tiny fraction of the real world fronted applications > JS devs are primarily people who hate javascript Modern javascript? Are you sure you're not projecting the fact that you hate it?
- krapp 2y ago
  By "modern javascript" I refer to both the language and the ecosystem of Node, NPM, Typescript, and related technologies that have become so ubiquitous as to be inseparable from the language to most people. I don't hate javascript, I'm not one of those "javascript delenda est[0]" people who go off on rants about the language whenever it comes up. However, I don't like what the language and ecosystem have turned into, and I don't like many of the incentives that brought those changes about. What used to be a community driven ecosystem has been captured by VC and corporate interests. Admittedly, I also don't like a lot of the more recent features added to the language like classes and templates, because I'd prefer javascript remain simple and avoid feature creep. [0]https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=javascript%20delenda%20est&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
lelanthran 2y ago
> 99% of websites don't need to be "highly interactive apps" like Figma or Google Docs. That's highly conservative; of all the react apps I have come across professionally exactly zero needed React.
- curtisblaine 2y ago
  Anecdote for anectode, the majority of React apps I encountered needed React (or something equivalent). Lots of web replacements for corporate native applications, which of course are complex, highly interactive beasts with a lot of state and a lot of logic on the client (with the server being glorified CRUD)

by krapp 2y ago

curtisblaine 2y ago

> That's exactly the point. 99% of websites don't need to be "highly interactive apps" like Figma or Google Docs. That's what I said n comments ago. If you don't need a highly interactive app, you can do with HTML and CSS only. > People write Java frameworks in Java. It's still programming in Java. You're still expected to understand the Java language to use Java frameworks. I hate to break it to you, but React is 100% written in javascript and you interact with it writing javascript. It's a library, not even a framework.

curtisblaine 2y ago

> Javascript is primarily compiled from other languages which use their own idioms, often imitating far more strictly typed languages. I'm not sure which languages are you referring to. Typescript? It's Javascript with types (minus enums, which are discouraged). Elm, Purescript, Clojurescript, Gleam? Great languages, but they represent a tiny fraction of the real world fronted applications > JS devs are primarily people who hate javascript Modern javascript? Are you sure you're not projecting the fact that you hate it?

krapp 2y ago
By "modern javascript" I refer to both the language and the ecosystem of Node, NPM, Typescript, and related technologies that have become so ubiquitous as to be inseparable from the language to most people. I don't hate javascript, I'm not one of those "javascript delenda est[0]" people who go off on rants about the language whenever it comes up. However, I don't like what the language and ecosystem have turned into, and I don't like many of the incentives that brought those changes about. What used to be a community driven ecosystem has been captured by VC and corporate interests. Admittedly, I also don't like a lot of the more recent features added to the language like classes and templates, because I'd prefer javascript remain simple and avoid feature creep. [0]https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=javascript%20delenda%20est&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

lelanthran 2y ago

> 99% of websites don't need to be "highly interactive apps" like Figma or Google Docs. That's highly conservative; of all the react apps I have come across professionally exactly zero needed React.

curtisblaine 2y ago
Anecdote for anectode, the majority of React apps I encountered needed React (or something equivalent). Lots of web replacements for corporate native applications, which of course are complex, highly interactive beasts with a lot of state and a lot of logic on the client (with the server being glorified CRUD)