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Comment by drcongo | Hacker News Reader

I maintain that React is the single worst thing to happen to front end development. Certainly for the poor end user.

This is a weird take, since most end users have no idea what React is. They just access websites (always have, will continue to do so).

I think it is an interesting exercise to think about the worst thing to happen to web development in the past 20 years, but I don't think I have an answer for that right now.

Generally I don’t complain about React apps I use, but I know how the sausage is made (I make them) and my guess is users are getting worse apps than they could be getting because of all the half-baked hacks that go into React apps. It is not just React but the tower of complexity that gets pulled in.

In theory you could find a nice widget set and have components like a desktop app framework like WPF or Java FX but often people wind up with several different component sets, each of which has an idiosyncratic approach to CSS or something just plain psychotic like pre-grid layout bootstrap.

On my own account I make apps that are not JavaScript heavy unless I want to do something exotic like use three.js.

React has the strong advantage that it is easy to make video game like animations that work over the application globally, but I think it is a strong minus for most of what management really values…. That is, having an application that works, having it developed quickly, being able to update it quickly.

> I think it is an interesting exercise to think about the worst thing to happen to web development in the past 20 years, but I don't think I have an answer for that right now.

Definitely XMLHttpRequest becoming available to JavaScript in 2006.

Java applets maybe?

Protip: you can turn your hate posting & rage into something interesting & useful by explaining why. Use your anger!! Dont waste it.

Sorry, you're right. I hate it because I come across so many broken SPA sites, the vast majority of which would be better as a page of server-rendered HTML. I can only assume that these sites are tested in a clean browser on a clean network and with no browser plugins installed - the number I've come across that are non-functional just because I have Google Analytics / Tag Manager blocked is quite something.

Well, with more SSR frameworks like NextJS coming in, you can get your server side HTML and the developer can use the DX of React. This is what I do, since I too dislike SPAs but love the DX of having components, as well as incrementally being able to use cool libraries like framer-motion and react-three-fiber for progressive enhancement interactivity, so the page works fine without JS (since only HTML is sent over the wire) and for those who have JS on, they can use more enhanced features like interactive elements.

Beautifully said.

Couldn't agree more.

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