Ask HN: Is there any consultancy that helps get rid of React? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there any consultancy that helps get rid of React?

I mean purposely. A lot of huge pain in projects that are using React. If you are the ones, what's your alternative solution that won't cause business big trouble? I know SolidJS is similar enough, that would be a smooth transition. I have a feeling that everyone knows how bad React is but they can't quit because of all the non-technical reasons. Is there a way out to "React only for day job" disease?

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As discussed extensively in this thread: >https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34796277

I would say what is bad is all GUI or application development over the web. React solves some problems of application development and introduces others. If you are really annoyed by the problems introduced by React and want a new platform that doesn't have those problems, that's fine, go for it. But be clear that the web is a broken environment for application development all the way down and there's no silver bullet. You will find problems in whichever stack you choose. Analyze clearly what trade-offs you are making and don't think that everything was fine until React arrived, React was created to address certain issues.

Those problems may have been partially addressed by new web-standards, but not all have been addressed, and those web-standards have not been battle-tested hard enough to decide if the solutions are good enough.

It's tough for engineers when React already loses in any technical challenge. If a business were selling cheap product, that would justify poor materials. But if your business is high-end, why don't use the best materials?

I don't know if there's a consultancy that specializes in migrating teams away from React, but I'd just like to say that I absolutely despise that React has sort of become the industry standard from so many companies without even a partial investigation into the alternatives.

React isn't particularly fast.

React isn't particularly organized well.

React isn't particularly pleasant or motivating to work in.

Companies that look into some of the great alternatives will run circles around their slower and dumber competitors.

Commenting just to see if there are any consultancies successfully marketing themselves as getting rid of React.

I think there are just not actively marketing as such.

It's quite a paradox value. If CTOs or tech leads are competent enough they wouldn't bring this React mess into business in the first place. But if the CTO is incompetent, he won't think he has a need for getting rid of React. So the business of getting of React only has value to companies who want to admit "we made a mistake".

I respectfully disagree.

React is great.

The problem arises when people believe that it’s a one size fits all solution.

Choosing a framework / programming language / paradigm requires careful consideration and evaluation: not doing so can be explained by incompetence or more often simply by a lack of knowledge.

Not a web developer—under what circumstances is React great and why? And when is it not a good solution?

Excellent question!

First off, I assume you're asking the question from your point of view, or people similar to you: without knowledge of frontend / React.

If you do have experience with React (or are even proficient in it), in 2023, thanks to the great work of Vercel (Next.js) and Remix – React is a great fit for most projects (even for the examples I gave for the "bad fit").

That said, when is React a good fit?

- "Web-apps", think interactive and highly dynamic apps, example: SimplePDF.eu (disclosure: my micro-saas)

- Complex projects with multiple (many) developers: React is highly scalable (provided of course that the developers are proficient in it), thanks to one of the key paradigm that it introduced at the time (which was ground-breaking): components – you not only can re-use easily the same code in multiple places without duplicating it ("duh, any good programmer knows that you should do that" – here React forces you to adopt this approach) but you can also very easily abstract away complex logic (easier for developers from all levels of experience to collaborate)

When is React a bad fit?

- Content rich websites, think Hackernews, Reddit...

- Simple, non-interactive websites: your local museum website, your personal CV

Lastly: YMMV – every project is different, every project evolves differently: React could be a great fit initially and end up being the bane of your existence (which seems to be the case for OP) – and vice-versa.

I worked on bloat reduction project. For example a data table with sorting and filtering can be a plain html table with some j query and fancy css.

Or 10x more lines of code with JSX, Redux, Services, Axios calls, data models duplicating server Data models, ViewModels because why not.

All that to display a list of vendors.

It's native to think that migrating from React to SolidJS will solve your issues.

*naive

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