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Comment by shaftoe444 | Hacker News Reader

Cutesy cartoon saying no JavaScript but all examples are JavaScript. Html first but you need npm install. Convinced this is satire designed to annoy me.

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Cannot stress enough how every framework for development that starts with "npm install" is inaccessible to most amateurs by its very nature.

I'm not sure what drives developers to be so insular with thought and make so many assumptions about others. It seems like basic gate-keeping activity, but maybe it's just ignorance.

I'd say otherwise. JS is one of the largest and most vibrant communities because it is the opposite of hard. And because the amount of investment you get in and the amount of payoff you get out is emotionally delightful. And because there is a huge and competitive ecology of pedagogy on YT and other places.

You don't get to this size because it's so hard. People aren't joining JS for the relatively low prestige, they aren't joining because the paycheck compares any better to any other part of the industry, and they aren't joining because of any promise of intellectual development — they're joining because it's the most accessible doorway in the tech community today.

There's no other part of the industry that's so clogged with amateurs trying to join.

The only other industry I can think of which is so hot in its community energy would be Python and ML, but they appeal with a different set of values. ML is hot because it's prestigious, ML is hot because the job market is insanely hot, ML is hot because it promises boundless intellectual exploration.

I'm a senior software engineer with 20 years experience and I still struggle with npm/yarn nearly every time I use it. In my experience, the most senior people on JS teams also struggle with dependency problems, react, etc constantly. This is not a struggle I experience or see others experiencing with Java or C#. Python environments and tools can be frustrating but not anywhere near as much as JS tools.

I agree. I’ve used nodejs quite a bit, but I rarely need it for whatever I am doing and quite often actively avoid it because all of that shit is a pain in the ass over just writing a script in an ide or even direct text.

Same thing. Saw "No Javascript" and then went to the example app....nothing but Javascript?

it says "No Javascript required unless you want it", not just "No Javascript."

One would expect better reading comprehension from people who want websites to look like it's 1993.

As opposed to this cute website that's built for toddlers.

The very first mention of Javascript on the site is a huge graphic (full width) that says "NO JAVASCRIPT REQUIRED".

The very next item on the page is another huge graphic which says “unless you want it”.

Agreed...and honestly I didn't scroll any further. I saw, "No Javascript Required" and scrolled back to the top, went to the docs and looked at the example so I could see what this was like. Then I saw Javascript.

I just think that if you are saying so boldly that you don't need to use Javascript, then maybe your first example should be without Javascript?

Yeah, that seems like a reasonable take.

FWIW I kind of feel like “no js” may be a pipe dream today. I see a lot of talk about it but very few sites actually do it; there just seems to be a lot of pressure to use the next big JS framework in the community.

Also analytics and so forth.

Their website would probably be better if they actually drank their own kool-aid.

Yes, instead of npm they should have used hpm the html package manager.

Jokes aside, it's a full stack framework, you need some server-side language. It's the served html that is (optionally) javascript-free.

I think most people understand that "no Javascript" applies to the client. You can't exactly write a backend in pure HTML.

Remember ColdFusion?

Sure, not exactly "pure", but the point was basically to make it look like that.

Yeah when I saw npm... "no javascript unless you want to?", really? Looks like the author really wants you to use Javascript

The title has full stack very prominently. Did you expect to code the backend in css?

Last week, we had PHP on the desktop. I fully expect to see a full backend framework written in CSS by the end of August.