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Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

> MESH is based on a simple principle: one component = one endpoint. This is a powerful idea - it allows us to write a HTML-first back-end in such a way that it feels like writing an SPA.

Gotta admit, I'm still not completely grasping the hype around HTMX, but I thought one of the core ideas was that it decidedly should not feel like writing an SPA, but more like old-style PHP or ASP scripts again. (In the sense that the front end is driven by the back end instead of the other way around)

So wouldn't this give you sort of the worst of both worlds? The modeling overhead of SPAs + the tight coupling of HTMX?

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> MESH is based on a simple principle: one component = one endpoint. This is a powerful idea - it allows us to write a HTML-first back-end in such a way that it feels like writing an SPA.

Yeah, I immediately could tell this is where the idea and HTMX collided.

In the worldview where HTMX shines, every page is just a document. HTMX is just a small library to add some capabilities for better interactivity. The goal is precisely to avoid what the author wanted.

Yeah this also reminds me of people getting burned by Web Components, because they use them with the same granularity as React components.

Because that's literally how they were marketed and hyped for a very long time.

Now? No one knows or can tell you what they are for (except leaf components and HTML Web Components maybe)

are they supposed to be more or less granular?

Less granular.

Somewhere between "React components" and "Microfrontends."

They can still be small, but often you will want many fewer than React components.

anything can be granular, but doing that in web component is very clunky, it's like writing java with a class and a code file for every tiny thing.

> Gotta admit, I'm still not completely grasping the hype around HTMX

Right place, right time.

React, the darling of web dev, has become huge and unwieldy and complex. The newcomers haven't been able to unseat it due to sheer ecosystem advantage. And then comes HTMX with quirky marketing hitting all the right notes (and having some actual good ideas underneath all that).

React is not huge - I don't understand where that conception comes from.

Compared to what?

Anything - it's like 10kb

More like 5-10x that.

Technically, yes. But the reality is almost nobody uses "just" React. There's typically tons and tons of other dependencies.

React is not huge. It’s just a library that converts strings to tags. Oh you want to use React? You want JSX — the only use case for the React library? You want routing and URLs and history and state management and … ok you don’t want a virtual DOM but you need it. And you need Babel and a build tool and a generator framework (because piecing it all together is too hard) and tree shaking and CSS (in JS!) and lots of weird and complex lifecycle hooks.

React is both bigger (in terms of bytes) and more complex than Angular.

So, to answer your question, React is more complex than just about everything. I’d like to see you find a more complex framework.

Sometimes it feels like those who would develop the next React should really just try to develop the next web browser. Why spend all this time and effort building what is essentially a massive wad of chewing gum and paperclips to take what is essentially a glorified document reader and make it into an application platform?

We can run other executables on our local. The web itself is the problem and what needs to die to give way to something new.

A lot of those “apps” are just dynamic documents and forms that still fits the web model. It’s just that SPA is a bad architecture for them. Why push rendering to the client if all the data comes from the backend or need a round trip through there?

But something like Figma, Slack is indead a huge hack in terms of technology, but it would be way less code and more performance to just have native desktop apps.

The honest answer is because all your users have that wad of chewing gum and paper clips installed on their devices already, and you don't need an IT admin to whitelist your executable to install it in the contexts where that's still necessary.

You forgot to mention the chaos of npm CVE transitive dependency hell.

I worked with large React and large Angular (1 and 2+) codebases. I even migrated projects between them.

I genuinely don't understand how Angular is considered simpler than React.

Both have a build step. React hasn't needed a "generator" for years now (if you mean stuff like CRA). With tools like Vite or RSBuild, it's like 2 lines. Yeah, the JSX needs to be compiled, but so do templates, custom CSS dialect, and TS's old/non-standard decorators in Angular.

Angular has way more quirks and reactivity foot guns than React. I think major React adoption painpoint is hooks, but while they are clunky, they're way "easier to hold" than most Angular tools.

Same when it comes to state management libraries in angular, but I digress.

Huge as in usage? - yes it is huge.

Huge as in the library ecosystem? - yes it is huge.

Huge as in its a massive dependency? - yes it is huge.

I couldn't understand why React was so popular till I read a comment where someone explained that Tailwind and React in a large company allows the 1000s of devs to work in tiny little components without conflicting with others, and all of a sudden it makes sense why people make themselves suffer using React. Then everyone else is just following the large companies because "well X/Y/Z use it so we should too!!!"

React is 7.4kb minified, add react-dom and you add another 3.6kb - so ~11kb

Htmx is 59.9kb minified.

So it’s not huge in at least one dimension: file size.

https://bundlephobia.com/package/react@19.1.1

https://bundlephobia.com/package/react-dom@19.1.1

https://bundlephobia.com/package/htmx.org@2.0.7

https://bundlephobia.com/package/react-dom@18.3.1 130kb for react-dom 15-18 (would check more but site has rate limited me...)

So, while yes the very latest version of react is *finally* as slim as competitors like preact, don't act like all the legacy projects where a migration is off the table due to time or money just don't exist.

I just created a new vite react project. All it does is render:

function App() { return <div>Hello world</div> }

Publish it as if it would be deployed to prod. ~185kb

Your level of understanding is not very huge. React is an absolute pleasure to use, and we do enjoy it - that is why it became the most popular library and a revolution in web dev.

> Your level of understanding is not very huge

We don't need such comments here.

Why do you speak for someone else? Those "We" are in the same room with us?

The commenter above first couldn't understand, then read some comment, then understood something completely out-of-point throwing a bunch of generalisms touching me like "people make themselves suffer" and "everyone else is just following" and decided to dump it here? I can't just leave it untouched since I have actual experience with React.

"We" as the HN users, expect at least some level of civility when conversing here. It's right up there in the guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Try to argue without being personal.

Tell me then does this kind of comment fits those guidelines or welcome here?

>miroljub 3 hours ago | parent | next [–]

>We don't need such comments here.

Is it kind? Is it curious? Thoughtful? Substantive?

In fact it contradicts guidelines, as they encourage downvoting without explanation in order to not clutter the thread. They were trying to explain to you, whereas most readers will sinply downvote. Yes, I think they meant that as a kindness.

Do you think people criticizing React do without experience? How naivy.

React is huge compared to both itself and most of the competition.

Compare the current React API to original React API. There are 18 hooks, Suspense, hydration, transitions, contexts, "user client"/"user server" etc.

And yet it's a 10th the file size of htmx

"Huge" doesn't always refer to file size

Yet you don’t have to use all of it, but it’s there if you need it.

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