Honestly I think React DX kinda sucks, at least in some areas. Performance is one of the worst (`useMemo` and `componentShouldUpdate` are way to easy to ignore, constant re-renders are the norm and writing performant React code requires conscious effort to avoid footguns) but it's also just less self-explanatory than the alternatives I've tried.

I started doing web dev before reactivity frameworks were a thing, and I found Vue to be the most intuitive of the frameworks available when I first needed reactivity. To me, Vue feels like HTML with superpowers while React feels like a whole new way of thinking about webapps. I'm honestly a bit surprised that the article doesn't mention Vue, since Vue is (and has been for a while) the most popular "not React or Angular" framework option. Newer versions of Vue even support the "disappearing framework" feature Svelte was built for, which I'm excited to take advantage of when my biggest work project finally moves to Vue 3.

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apsurd 18 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you've nailed it. It does come down to user preference.

React _is_ a whole new way of thinking. Back in the days of jQuery it was very painful to stitch together web experience across HTML+CSS+JS. jquery provided much needed DX around utilities to navigate across these pieces. But it was still way too easy to treat HTML like your database and model user-state across a Frankenstein of server, json, html, and javascript.

React was a paradigm shift. "Screw it, everything is javascript." The web depends on js runtime, we know we're going to need it. It starts to makes the best future-forward sense to use the only full programming runtime available. From DX pov this was spectacular to speed up prototyping. And you can finally truly model state purely from data.

What followed was a huge a mess (redux), but I always say, what do we expect? The web is a mess, and it's great because it's useful. Humans are a mess!

--- VUE: similar to angular I just don't align with "super-powered html attributes". It just doesn't make sense as a mental model. Because it's _not_ HTML spec and HTML is not a programming language. The more powerful the framework gets the more we reinvent a pseudo-programming language _through_ HTML. Angular was full-stop a no-go when I first saw it's for-loops in HTML.

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recursive 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Neither react's JSX nor vue's template language are HTML. But rejecting vue's template on grounds that it's not HTML seems odd. React's JSX deviates from HTML in many ways. Like class vs className. XML self-closing vs HTML self-closing. onchange vs oninput. On purely aesthetic grounds, I can't understand how the react idiom of array.map() would ever be preferable to an affordance in the (non-HTML) template language for handling this normal standard thing that always happens.

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apsurd 16 hours ago | parent [-]

it's not about feigning html purity it's the opposite. Why pretend we're using HTML when it's not? so with react it becomes a js flavor, jsx, which some people hate but it's very clear that it's a made up language IN real javascript.

edit: the mental model is instant: it's just javascript for reals. do anything you want in javascript using real js primitives. it's not about looking pretty, jsx doesn't. it's about not relearning basic programming primitives in a made up _markup_ language.

my issue with angular is it's neither real html nor any programming language. its made up pseudo-programming language for no other reason than it fools people into thinking "it's just HTML". that's my gripe.

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recursive 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

JSX also fools people into thinking "it's HTML in javascript". I've heard several co-workers say this. JSX is a made up language as well. It's not javascript. That's why you need a build step to parse the syntax.

Angular and vue's template language are no more made up than JSX is.

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markmark 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Completely agree with you. Every time I see yet another template language adding some clumsy for-each loop syntax I sigh. Just let us use a normal programming language. As an example I give you every template system ever invented. Devops tooling is full of them.

	▲	recursive 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Over the years, I've seen a few posts like this that seem to take it as a given that a loop in a normal programming language is better than foreach capability in a template language. Certainly enough times to believe that a significant group of people actually believe it's superior. There's not a difference in capability of expression of the two models. It seems to be a purely aesthetic or comfort difference. I guess different people like different things.

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harry_m 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Both the Vue template language and JSX are supersets of HTML. However, when it comes to integrating with CSS, JSX significantly worsens DX.

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erikpukinskis 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You are correct. JSX is not “just HTML”. It’s “just interleaved HTML and JavaScript”.

`v-bind:id` and `@click.prevent` are something else. There is nothing like this in JSX. It’s not HTML. It’s not JavaScript. It’s some other language.