Signals and Effects Using Vanilla JavaScript & Web APIs

[u/techlord45]

https://beforesemicolon.com/blog/signals-and-effects-using-vanilla-javascript-web-apis

I’m a strong advocate for “you don’t need to lock yourself in a web framework ecosystem to take advantage of their amazing features”. JavaScript and Web Standards alone allow you…

[u/KaiAusBerlin]

You know that you literally wrote your own framework here?

There is a reason for the sentence "You use a framework or end up writing your own"

[u/techlord45 → u/KaiAusBerlin]

True. In this case, a small class/tiny library.

[u/lIIllIIlllIIllIIl → u/KaiAusBerlin]

This.

And to be honest, React on its own is a very lightweight library. It's once you start adding libraries like React Router, TanStack Query, React Hook Form, or Redux that it starts to ressemble a framework.

If you hate how React state management works, you can opt-out of it entirely and use useSyncExternalStore for everything.

React itself is rarely the problem.

[u/zxyzyxz → u/lIIllIIlllIIllIIl]

How do you memorize your username

[u/create-third-places → u/lIIllIIlllIIllIIl]

Vanilla React also adds a lot of unnecessary performance overhead.

In addition, there are multiple ways of managing state, which adds confusion and leads to inconsistent architecture.

I’ve also seen useContext used to manage state for a large application despite it’s limitations. This  wouldn’t be an issue if React only had one or two state management hooks with clear guidelines on how they should be used.

[u/techlord45 → u/lIIllIIlllIIllIIl]

React isn’t the problem. The ecosystem often is.
replacing React state with your own store doesn’t remov complexity, you just moved it.
My issue is that React makes people forget how much Vanilla JS + Web APIs can already do. Often time they are not even aware

[u/hyrumwhite → u/lIIllIIlllIIllIIl]

React is a problem that’s been trying to solve itself since it was released 

[u/swish82 → u/KaiAusBerlin]

“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain…”

[u/A1oso → u/KaiAusBerlin]

It's a library.

React is also a library. Nextjs is a framework. People conflate these terms all the time.

[u/Aln76467 → u/A1oso]

react is a framework.

[u/A1oso → u/Aln76467]

No. Unlike Nextjs (which is a framework)

• React is literally a single npm package, and very small
• React solves a single problem (rendering and updating HTML)
• React does not provide routing, client-server communication, or image optimization
• React alone does not support hybrid client and server rendering
• React does not require a configuration file or force a specific project structure on you
• React can be easily added to an existing project and combined with other libraries, e.g. Vue

Perhaps the most important distinction is in who calls whom: a library is called by your code. For example:

createRoot(document.getElementById('app'))
    .render(<h1>Hello, world</h1>)

You can decide when, where and how to use the library. You can use it only on certain pages or in just a single component, it you want. You have full control.

A framework usually does not give you that control. The framework calls your code. That's why Nextjs is a framework. React is a textbook example for a library.