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0 pointscorethree2y ago0 comments

I never said a transition back from react is not an improvement. Again you're not getting it.

I'm saying we had problems with vanilla js initially and we've never moved forward. The fact that we are going back to vanilla js is reopening all the old issues are a sign that we are in stagnation.

Nothing has changed. It's a circle of attempting to improve and failing.

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evantbyrne2y ago· 2 in thread

I dunno man, I don't consider browser APIs to be a failure. In fact, it's probably the most popular UI toolkit in existence by a wide margin. It being a collection of evolving standards doesn't count against it in my book.

corethreeOP2y ago

Many bad things are popular. Java, C++, JavaScript. Popularity doesn't preclude something from being shit.

The front end UI isn't a collection of evolving standards. It's the same standard with more and more cruft added on top.

HTML wasn't designed for what we are doing with it now. Each additional layer... css, JavaScript, the dom, typescript, react, is a new layer over an old thing. It's like never buying a new car just modifying your old one from the 50s to stay up to date. That's why the entire front end API feels so bad. It feels disorganized with complexity that exceeds necessity.

The complexity of the spec even took years for browsers to get right. This is not a sign of good design. It's a sign of endless designs layered on top of each other all in vain effort to modernize everything and keep it backwards compatible.

evantbyrne2y ago

There's a difference between being popular, and being the most popular thing in a category ever and keeping that title for decades with no serious challengers. The browser as we know it with the DOM is the latter. Maybe that will change with new APIs that hook into the canvas, but we're still a ways off from that and I suspect the DOM will remain in the picture even then.

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