
Why We Should Ditch React [video] - macando
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRo18pUs61Q
======
ntdb
This is a long-winded rant that seems to boil down to advocating for avoiding
frameworks altogether. Not worth the watch.

TLDW: “the whole point behind this video, guys, is maybe we should ditch React
because all of these changes are because of short-sighted architecture, and
maybe we all shouldn’t just be these herd animals that are constantly taking
and following the herd from one section of the field to the other you know we
keep going around in circles and getting nowhere.”

~~~
phailhaus
Sounds like he's never had to develop a complex stateful application. In the
comments he suggests we can get away with just using "raw js and a decent MVC
framework", which becomes unmaintainable very quickly.

~~~
olavgg
There is no such thing that raw/vanilla js is unmaintable, what is
unmaintainable is stuff that breaks regulary and vanilla/raw js never(almost?)
breaks.

~~~
phailhaus
Er, what? The language is not what is breaking here, your application is. If
you try to build a complex stateful application with no frameworks, you will
more than likely create an unmaintainable buggy mess. You won't be able to
reliably add new features without breaking something else.

------
baron816
Summary: this guy doesn’t like hooks because he doesn’t like learning new
stuff and he wants to throw out React because it changed a little bit. Doesn’t
mention the benefits of framework changes or rationale behind them.

Definitely garbage YouTube click bait here. Don’t bother.

~~~
guitarbill
He does have a point that churn/the new hotness is a real issue, and the
latest hotness in JS library/framework have a very short shelf-life. On the
other hand, projects like Babel or Polymer, that _want_ to be obsolete at some
point, but will require minimal re-writing when that happens are excellent and
future-proof.

~~~
notus
There is a far less framework churn now than there was 10 years ago. React,
Angular, and Vue have all been around for a long time now relative to previous
JS frameworks. React makes a lot of changes but they are, on average,
improvements. Not all of them are the best decisions and some are temporary
band aids to support new features, but the constant iteration in response to
changing expectations for web is one of it's strengths IMO.

~~~
guitarbill
Angular 1 or 2? Cause the latter seems to be 3 years old. Okay, facile
argument, the others are 5-6 years old from a quick search.

> React makes a lot of changes [...] the constant iteration in response to
> changing expectations for web

maybe it's ironic we're having that discussion on HN, and i'm struggling to
remember sites that have gotten better lately, not worse. then again, that's
probably because of the bias to remember negative experiences

------
pmontra
I usually don't look at videos (it takes too long) but I was complaining with
myself that React is needlessly complicated so I checked it.

The point of the video is not so clear, maybe it's why reinventing the wheel
again and again and not coming up with a good wheel once again.

First what I like of React vs (example) jQuery: despite the complexity a React
(or Angular or whatever) application is infinitely more maintainable than the
corresponding jQuery one. I converted one to React when I didn't dare anymore
to fix bugs in a jQuery monster I created.

However, wrestling with dispatch, props, Object.assign, actions etc can't be
the right way to do it. After all these web applications are the same thing we
were doing in the 90s with VisualBasic or similar systems. Replace disk access
or local Access dbs with JSON calls over HTTP, not a big difference and yet,
coding a React app is a miserable experience. I think frontend developers
should be paid twice as much as backend ones: they do a much more difficult
job. For sure I don't want to do frontend development: it's not an efficient
way to make money.

Some context: I'm mostly a backend developer now and I'm spending a few days
working on a React frontend every two or three months. So I'm a little too
rusty every time I start working with React. That doesn't help but I can't
help feeling that code as complex as this smells of wrong architectural
decisions. A collegue told me that Vue is much more pleasant to work with. I
could give it a try if I'll ever have a personal project needing a complicated
frontend. Server generated HTML is fine for everything else.

~~~
adventured
I agree with your colleague: Vue is a lot more enjoyable to work with. I've
disliked React every time I've worked with it and Vue has always been a good
experience by contrast. For some reason working with React always makes me
feel like it's the Java of JS frameworks. The problem ultimately is, Vue has
long since badly lost the mindshare battle, React won. That doesn't matter for
every developer or situation of course.

------
macando
I'm a fan of React but I posted the link because this time the author actually
used React for many years. Usually, people criticizing it are still learning
and are frustrated by React's vast and fragmented ecosystem stemming from its
open nature.

~~~
ntdb
The author's criticisms do not seem to be insightful. They boil down to "bah
humbug stop changing things". Did you get something more useful out of it?

------
css
What advantage does presenting this in video form have over a blog post?

~~~
TickMark
Because I wound never read this blog post. Video, on the other hand, I will
listen while preparing my lunch.

------
nobleach
The comments are a bit disconcerting. "Redux is trash"? It's a finite state
machine. At its simplest level that's all it is. Now, I get that requiring it
in every single React app makes little sense, but the library itself is just
too simple to be considered "trash".

~~~
viklove
It's trash because people are dumb and it encourages them to store all of
their state globally.

~~~
nobleach
I'm pretty sure that is discouraged by the docs and the author. Just because a
library doesn't pop up a bouncing anthropomorphic paperclip and specifically
ASK you, "are you sure you want to store this state globally?", doesn't mean
the library is bad. Just think of the brain-dead things the C language allows
you to do with malloc! Yet that's not at all C's fault.

~~~
viklove
It might not be Redux's fault, but the result of Redux being a popular library
is that many projects have all of their state stored globally. This would not
be the case if Redux didn't exist. Call me consequentialist, but I think Redux
has to share some of the blame.

------
jypepin
The first 13 minutes are just a history of how we got to React. The remaining
is the author saying it's bad, but that he doesn't have a solution.

Not worth the watch.

------
paulsutter
Waste of time - he never explains what we should use instead

