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0 pointsapatheticonion3y ago0 comments

> templating makes it far easier to understand

I think this is the key take away.

React is great and offers a lot of tunability in terms of performance but to me it often feels a lot like writing low level code.

When I use something like Vue, Petite-Vue, Svelte, Angular (flawed but underrated) - it feels like using something high level (like an ORM) that is designed to take something difficult and map it to something human readable.

The relationship between my changes in code/state ergonomically translate across to the template and that leads to very maintainable applications.

In reality though, despite the endless stream of blogs telling you how to write React applications, React isn't prescriptive on how you write it. You can create "view models" with proxy objects to implement primitive data-binding in components and use Context to inject dependencies.

In fact I once wrote a compiler that compiled html template syntax into `React.createElement()`, and along with a supplied runtime I was able to use React as a backend for a reactive template renderer.

> Svelte and Vue approach to SFCs

I have personally found SFC to be super annoying given they are not optional and require custom tooling.

A single file is nice sometimes but I don't really mind if a component is split into 3 files (js, css, html) as long as they are associated with each other somehow. I just want to ensure that my view renderer requires the least amount of tooling possible so my project will stand the test of time and I can be self reliant for updates.

Can I use my own test runner? Can I pick my version of TypeScript? Can I setup my own eslint? Can I set up my own css preprocessor? Can I use custom compiler configuration (like using SWC)?

To me, the fact that React doesn't require a compiler (aside from translating jsx) is its greatest asset, and Vue/Svelte and Angular's greatest shortfall.

It's just a shame that React is so fiddly to work with

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3 comments · 1 top-level

The5thElephant3y ago· 2 in thread

I love having HTML/CSS/JS in one place, it means things never get detached from their immediately relevant context. Also thanks to nice extensions for VSCode (which wouldn't work across separate files) I can option-click any class name and get a mini-panel to edit the styles inline without hunting for the style section or a separate style file. I can also see when styles I have added are not being used in that component.

When I demo side projects and my own work to my coworkers they are always surprised "I didn't know you could do that!" and the thing is they can't because they are all stuck using React.

panopticon3y ago

> they can't because they are all stuck using React

You can get most—if not all—of that behavior in React with JSS and TypeScript. All of your component code (HTML, CSS, and JS) can be colocated in one file, you can jump to the CSS class definition, TS ensures the class name is legit, etc.

Svelte and Vue provide a more batteries-included experience, but React is very flexible.

The5thElephant3y ago

But it's a far worse developer experience, particularly for designers and HTML/CSS/A11y folks who aren't as JS focused. It's not like you really are getting that much benefit from writing CSS in JS besides familiarity with a language you prefer. It's harder to read and parse at a glance (even for the devs who wrote it, I see this in practice all the time when pairing and attempting to fix layout and style issues with my devs), harder to inspect from the browser, encourages practices that undermine many of the core benefits of CSS, etc.

My whole point is that we should not be finding worse workarounds just so we can stick with the familiarity of React. Even outside of HTML and styling it is easier to do stuff in other frameworks than it is in React. React is not providing some magical level of power other frameworks don't provide.

I don't hate React, I'm just sick of it being the defacto standard. We are creating a React monoculture in web dev and it absolutely has secondary impacts on how we write markup, styles, and how approachable and accessible our codebases are. So many major decisions being made just so a team can stick with React.

Why not pick a different framework and get better performance, easier to write JS logic, easier to write and read markup and styles, and a code that designers and others can engage with easily without having to be JS fluent?

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