Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS

Re:Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS by harel on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @06:49AM (#14694984)

I disagree with you here. The complexity of my app is my problem. The complexity of how to render some stuff into the screen is not. I don't have the time to deal with both. As far as bloated node_modules - I agree and I will always opt for my own version instead of some trivial npm that has one function in it. But some things I don't have time to deal with. I've done work with All-In Javascript frameworks where you have to submit to the framework, and work within it fully. React essentially eliminated this for me. I don't need a framework beyond React as a view library and perhaps redux to manage state. I can then pick and choose what to bring in as 3rd party because it saves me time and what to implement myself. I've also done a good deal of Vanilla JS which has its place for smaller projects. And more often than not, those smaller projects grow beyond "Vanilla".

Doing my own thing is of course possible and in many cases is fast to get something up. But doing it correct and proper takes a lot of time and attention. When I'm trying to get a project going - time is not on my side, but I still want it done correct and proper. If someone comes in and does a complex part of my app correctly, I'd use it. Its NOT a problem.

Edit: By the way, taking a snippet of a line from what I said and quoting it without its context does not make for good discussion.

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Re:Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS by daliwali on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @07:26AM (#14695168)

>The complexity of how to render some stuff into the screen is not [my problem].

But it is. You are depending on some complex third party code to do your job, how you want to punt responsibility to someone else is irrelevant. Web developers aren't owning up to the sorry state of front-end web development, because everyone says "it's not my problem", ask Facebook/Google/whatever.

Correct and proper have little meaning if at all in web development, they're usually dictated by the biggest companies and most popular bloggers. Moreover, these definitions are constantly in flux (no pun intended). Nobody cares if your web app correctly follows the proper conventions of your framework. Front-end web developers seem to focus more on navel-gazing about the "developer experience" than results.

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Re:Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS by harel on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @08:21AM (#14695413)

But you're missing a context here. My context. I run two companies and contract on top. I also have a life. If any Big Company (tm) wants to give me a good solid presentation layer blackbox I'll take it and say thank you. I could develop my own presentation layer/frameword du jour/library/toolkit/whatever. But WHY would I do that when its already done. And those who did it do it full time as their day job, paid by said Big Company (tm). So i'll ride that train and use their blackbox and focus my energies where they are needed - in domain specific business logic that actually generates revenue.

I'm having fun doing it but i'm not doing it for fun.

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Re:Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS by mst on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @11:04AM (#14696241)

> You are depending on some complex third party code to do your job

Yes. It's called a web browser.

The additional complexity of react is a drop in the bucket compared to the complexity of the undertlying platform.

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Re:Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS by harel on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @11:17AM (#14696355)

Haha so true. I keep forgetting that... I take browsers for granted sometimes.

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Re:Show HN: Under the hood ReactJS by daliwali on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @12:00PM (#14696592)

Minimalist, modern web browsers exist. A good example of this is surf [0], which is based on WebKit and is <50kb of C. That's less than half the size of React source. It obviously doesn't have all the features that Firefox or Chrome might have, but demonstrates that browsers don't have to be bloated.

[0] http://surf.suckless.org/

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