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Comment by mewpmewp2 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think React is approachable. It is just the most popular framework and has the biggest ecosystem, that is why it is used. Otherwise it is just not good in my view compares to others.

Also I don't think useMemo or useCallback were a reasonable compromise ever.

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My initial reaction to a Tweet from Andrew Clark on the upcoming compiler motivated me to write[0]:

    React is the new IBM: you should learn it, you should understand its faults, you should probably still deploy it. You’ll never get fired for picking it, but it’s going to be expensive, bloated, difficult to get right, and it’s going to be joyless implementing it every step of the way. React is “the status quo mindset — the biggest enemy of pure innovation”.

I think the project has completely gone off of the rails and is now going through these cycles of self-inflicted complexity only to be solved several releases later with additional complexity. All the while, not really addressing the core issues that affect DX and ergonomics.

React is the new IBM.

[0] https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2023/02/react-is-the-new-ibm/

It became the most popular in the landscape where all kinds of other frameworks existed. Because nothing beats immediate-mode-style API in terms of code clarity.

> Because nothing beats immediate-mode-style API in terms of code clarity.

This is not React these days at all. Maybe when it was just an actually useful library. Not a hope now.

> It became the most popular in the landscape where all kinds of other frameworks existed

It became popular because it was simple, when it was simple. Then they did what all JS developers do. Find a problem for a solution.

Did you write React with class-based components? Do you think CWM/CWU/CWRP is better than useEffect, or constructor/setState is better than useState?

Yes, because those methods were actually obvious and said what they did.

Hooks are very non obvious / full of gotchas, and made react code no longer "just javascript".

at the time Vue is had it right but the people wanted TS and that wasn't a good UX for too long in Vue.

now it seems the magic Vue had has gotten better, and was copied over but worse to react.

if react can fix it by compiling it away, cool. but fixing computer bugs is even less approachable than webpack.

React like angular seems to me very much a solution from a bygone time. The time when internet was slow and expensive.

I find very little reason for anyone, except services in the insta scale, to actually use this abomination, since CSS and html deliver the same user experience with plain SSR.

The internet is still slow and expensive for huge swathes of the world.

React is still not a better option for them.

The truth is that React was very good and probably would have remained pretty good to great even today if the original form had been iterated upon.

What we’re seeing today is nothing like the original react and should have been a completely different library in the first place.

I suspect if this completely library had been created without the advantage of piggy backing off the original highly successful React library’s fame, it would have made little to no headway on its own strength.

Heck, I’d be open to an argument that what we’re seeing today, a DSL that’s focused on making NextJS work, could even be considered a 3rd or 4th different library under the React moniker, after original React, hooks based React (even here the goal and meaning of hooks changed midway) and then the current NextJS DSL.

I get that some people only work on web pages, but can we at least have some acknowledgement that web apps exist?

Some people (me) use React to build interactive web apps. That’s what it was designed for, and it works rather well. SSR is completely useless for me.

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