For me, this sums it up [0]. I prefer HN to Redit because it's snappy. But every site I've ever worked on that didn't start off with a good front-end framework wound up being a huge mess on the front-end. The front end generally becomes more and more complex even for simple sites.
"Can we add discussions to this page?" "Great! Now, can they be live-updating?" "Great! Now, can we have a nice little notification counter?" "Great! Now can it be collaboratively edited?"
Eventually, the front end becomes a monstrosity.
When starting out, if you just plan for a complex front end, and choose a well-structured framework, your life as a developer will be much less painful. Yes. It's overkill for a blog. But who among us is really building a simple blog? We're building applications that happen to run in the browser.
"Can we add discussions to this page?" "Great! Now, can they be live-updating?" "Great! Now, can we have a nice little notification counter?" "Great! Now can it be collaboratively edited?"
Eventually, the front end becomes a monstrosity.
When starting out, if you just plan for a complex front end, and choose a well-structured framework, your life as a developer will be much less painful. Yes. It's overkill for a blog. But who among us is really building a simple blog? We're building applications that happen to run in the browser.
[0] https://hackernoon.com/why-does-this-site-require-javascript...