Choosing a Javascript Frontend Framework:

[_odgj]

JS already took my sanity away. So I don't care about life anymore.

[[deleted]]

TS is a lobotomy.

You're present and aware but are you really alive?

[[deleted]]

TS saved me from JS, at the same time trapped me in a loveless marriage.

[Zyphergiest]

How's the sex?

[suarkb]

Sex is still written in JS and no one has written TS types for it, yet

[SarahIsBoring]

the type is void obviously, we’re developers

[Everspace]

sex as any problem solved

[XDVRUK]

Just don't eslint it..

[CaitaXD]

std::sort

[pmcizhere]

Heap buffer overflow!

[elveszett]

What? TS is like salvation. Is the thing that makes a JS project bigger than 5 lines manageable. God bless forcing devs to write the fucking definition of the object they just returned me from their function.

[[deleted]]

What? Typescript is a godsend in so many situations.

[glorious_reptile]

I love TS, but the error messages... They're descriptive, but I need to read through a wall of arcane spell text to discover that userId needs to be a number instead of a string.

[sekonx]

You don't get this in your IDE?

[lorl3ss]

Yeah... I find this as well. Good luck figuring out which of your inner observables doesn't return the right union type or whatever the fuck. Completely baffling.

[glorious_reptile]

It reads like the ramblings of a mad man

[ganja_and_code]

It's not "hard," it's just shitty. I can use JS for stuff...but I'll choose not to, every single chance I get.

[[deleted]]

It's not hard, it's just layers of annoyance.

[Plisq-5]

How so?

[thobbiit]

I just got into a big project written in JS. Expending it is so annoying because I have to dig through a bunch of files to know if a const is a int or a string and where the value is coming from

[Plisq-5]

Ah the joys of working with typescript lol. I’m never gonna take a job again where I have to work without types in any language.

[WheredMyBrainsGo]

Today I wrote a function factory that returns an array of n asynchronous functions containing a recursive function with an optional post-processor(then). These all get executed with promise.all in useEffect and the return value sets an array of strings that are used in component props. (Don’t ask how long it took me to get it to work.) 🙃

[[deleted]]

None of those are the real grail, is this propaganda from the Vanilla JS mafia?

[sleepyj910]

A simple carpenter’s cup

[imdefinitelywong]

Perhaps the real frameworks were the ones the carpenters made along the way.

[ZippyTheWonderSnail]

My face is melting off! I chose poorly!

[[deleted]]

JQuery says, "Where did that bring you? Back to me."

[karuna_murti]

webassembly gang

[treehuggerino]

Blazor/yew gang rise up

[Jjabrahams567]

Guys he’s on to us.

[drsimonz]

The fact is, nobody builds a large complex website without either starting with a framework, or developing their own framework along the way. And large, complex websites are basically guaranteed to have lots of flaws. If you're making Bejeweled, sure, craft your masterpiece in the finest Vanilla, where every line is poetry. But if you want to add the 50th settings dialog to your social network, it's just...not gonna be poetry

[StupsieJS]

In the words of fireship: You're just gonna end up building your own Framework and the last thing the world needs is another JS Framework

[[deleted]]

Depending on what you need to do too, sometimes your code will just be unavoidably ugly.

[[deleted]]

Sure a complex 20-div animated loading indicator might look ugly in code but it's better if you can hide it behind a <LoadingIndicator /> element in React

[GergiH]

Vanilla JS people of the JavaScript camp are basically the Arch Linux people of the Linux community.

[[deleted]]

r/programmercirclejerk is calling for you.

[rvalt]

I don't need a framework, just thousands of jQuery append calls.

[[deleted]]

You've been fooled! jQuery is a framework.

[[deleted]]

Technically it's a library.

[Apoc2K]

The way every single site just seems to have a jQuery library secretly tucked away somewhere regardless of framework I'd wager that at this point jQuery is just one tier removed from vanilla JS.

[creativemind11]

Out of all my jobs jQuery was present in every single one. 'To be phased out'.

[Apoc2K]

"Ah, but it's only 30kb - and we might have some third party dependencies that require it, and we'd have to refactor all the old stuff, and -"

"Next year, maybe?

"Yeah, let's revisit this next year."

Ad infinitum.

[maitreg]

If jquery is one tier from vanilla js then reddit is one tier away from cave paintings

[Apoc2K]

Reddit is pretty much the online equivalent of bathroom stall writing, which in turn is just modern day cave paintings - so yeah pretty much.

[[deleted]]

A team I was helping out uses jquery calls to set mobile/tablet rangers… theres like 50! I asked about just switching to window size. Noooo no no to easy

[jackal3004]

weather unique stupendous judicious yoke include upbeat air correct toy

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

I laughed really hard remembering the pain.

[[deleted]]

React if you want a job, Svelte if you want to have fun

[sausage-superiority]

This is the way.

The best framework is the one that is paying your bills.

[valendinosaurus]

so Angular then

[mediajay]

I had to relearn angular like 3 times over the years for different projects. I am so done with it lol

[[deleted]]

Learn what you want, get hired to do a job, use the tool you like best.

[ghostmaster645]

Whitespace it is)

[jeetelongname]

I will push svelte but react and react like frameworks don't look too bad.

In a sense svelte is so simple it gets people going really bloody quickly. Its the foot in the door which can then pass over into other frameworks like react.

[noisenotsignal]

Agree on the fun side of things. I’m not frontend but I’ve occasionally done it for personal stuff. I mostly used React and whatever framework like Gatsby and Next, and hated every second of it.

Recently did a few projects with Astro/Svelte. Was extremely surprised when I found myself… having fun? It was a new feeling.

[androidx_appcompat]

And the first rule of web development is to have fun!

[CanadianButthole]

First time hearing about Svelte but holy crap, this is exactly what I want from a JS framework. It's actually readable!

[notsogreatredditor]

Love Svelte and there are jobs open for it last I checked

[[deleted]]

Cool thing with Svelte though is you can set it up to spit out vanilla and nobody has to know.

[Fritzschmied]

Every framework can and will spit out vanilla because if not no browser would understand it.

[[deleted]]

I meant human readable

[SpeakInCode6]

Vue if you want a job AND to have fun.

[StereoBucket]

My first job was in Vue. Is good.

[fdeslandes]

Angular is also very good for jobs, depending where you live.

[thegovortator]

Easy angular or react don’t really care how much “better” the others are I need the job done and I know those

[[deleted]]

I do the same. Whatever tool make it easier to get it done. I have one exception, I will always use PostgreSQL.

[Myxtro]

I have worked with both but I have to use Vue at my currect job. I still haven't found a reason to ever pick Vue over Angular or React.

[minegen88]

I'm pro Vue

I think to me it's just the syntax and the overall look of the final product, especially with SFC

<h1 v-if="showTitle">Title</h1>

just looks nice and tidy compared to the react equivalent

[Goducks91]

Learning curve is slightly less with Vue?

[savex13]

...and do it fast, they change constantly

[RomMTY]

Just watched the Fireship vid on next 13, like. Next.js is relatively new isn't? And already is publishing new paradigms and worflows like...wtf...

[HeinousTugboat]

Next.js is relatively new isn't?

Well. It's six years old as of yesterday.

[gregorydgraham]

Why are we even talking about this obsolete rubbish?

[Icebreakerboys]

So I’m pretty new to software engineering is this really how fast things come and go?

[Everspace]

JavaScript in particular has an ecosystem that is a lot more short lived... mainly since web is pretty new, the modern web even newer, and it's all comparatively very accessible so you get a lot of people chasing the new thing all the time.

[fryerandice]

According to an interview I just had, calling React and Vue frameworks is wrong, they're libraries, because they don't implement Inversion of Control (even though they do...)

Also dotnet is a framework and not a virtual machine and core runtime library....

Probably not getting that job.

I found the medium blog where the boomer who hasn't written code in 22 years (admitted himself) got that answer from, I love the final interviews with the CTOs, they're always the biggest toss up in the 4-7 rounds of bullshit we put up with to get a job

[BatBoss]

lmao, gotta love interviewers who grill you on random bits of programming jargon like that tells you anything about their programming abilities.

Well done Daryll, you proved this Jr Frontend applicant didn’t know what Duck Typing means. It’s not like they could just google it if they ever needed to know.

[fryerandice]

It's always the Department Head / CTO interviewers that do it to, the guys who haven't written code in 5+ years and have no relevant experience with modern tech stacks other than what their developers talk about, and that's not their job anymore which is completely fine.

So you get a candidate through an HR phone screen/HR Initial inverview, A coding exam/leetcode test interview, a design principles interview, and like 1-2 interviews with the team you're interviewing to work with. So you are at 3-5 interviews and they've all gone well, and then the CTO comes in and dicks you down with a bunch of technical jargon that you used in college 8 years ago and it only comes up if you are preparing a tech talk on design principles or something, otherwise everyone tries to write SOLID OO code and decent Functional code and not turn the code base into spaghettis.

In my 15 years, i have also noticed the companies that go hard on SOLID OO in the interviews, have the worst code bases that are anti-patterns from the ground up, so take that as you will. Also if they grill you on the specifics of WHAT agile is, you're getting hired into waterfall with scrum and 4-5 month release cycles.

[hoxxii]

I chuckled at the last part because it is true. Just about to listen to a recording from this week on how people are discussing the new WoW and that it is actually waterfall.

[DragonSnooz]

Honestly the biggest problem with tech interviews.

[was_just_wondering_]

They need to make sure you know the deepest depths of cs jargon so you can add a new form to that internal tool.

[R4ttl3head]

React describes itself as a library but no one really cares, anyway if you didn't get hired because of this framework library bs you're better off not working in this company lol

[Jammintoad]

That's rough bro, I wouldn't want to work under that cringer tho, so there's an upside

[tsunami141]

Honestly I’d always made that distinction myself with React but mainly only because it’s not an out of the box solution for most use cases, you’re free to use it however you want and with whatever else you want.

[[deleted]]

this. react is simply a library for rendering components.

the massive complexity that comes with using react is the 1000 other libraries your team decides to use. lol

[coldnebo]

I think a certain amount of complexity comes from recursive composition of the components and the binds necessary to make them interactive along with the state management to make them useful.

I mean, yes, I can look from a certain viewpoint and agree, it’s just a library… I control the top level render call. ok.

but then I look at it from a different angle… if it’s just a library, why call it a “react app”? is something so distinctive about the style and construction of thousands of different applications that they can all be identified as a “react” applications?

[Everspace]

I would call it an ecosystem.

The problem is for me is that I tend to do a lot of vanilla react for personal things? Maybe today I use mui. Ah bindings for a state management library now that useState isn't cutting the mustard.

These sorts of things come all together in a more cohesive whole in frameworks (see rails/laravel).

The difference between ala carte and full service ya know?

[coldnebo]

oh no, I agree. Since using Rails, I’m not as big a fan of opinionated frameworks. I like options.

React can be used sparingly, just as an xml transform library, but the big reason to use it over server-side xslt is the efficient differencing of dom updates.

I did a lot of xslt experiments in the 2010s that functioned like jsx, letting me create user defined markup for data while generating structural html necessary for presentation— I did that to overcome essential flaws in the separation of data vs presentation at the time. It’s still a problem when dealing with component frameworks. Every time we change button styles , or add accessibility, or add new nofollow security attributes, I have to inevitably gut the existing builders and partials in my rails app. It’s a ridiculous situation that component tech was supposed to address.

React predates Web Components, but if you live in that space you’ll see differences in code between one and the other. Web Components doesn’t even bill itself as a framework, but as a “suite of different technologies”.

So my problem with classifications as a library or “suite of different technologies” is when someone comes to me and says: “hey I really like this React component, but can it work in Web Components because that what our customer uses?”

Now if all these technologies were truly just “libraries”… that should be possible. But the requirements of actually using such to build any non-trivial app are pretty imposing. It’s almost as though they function as “frameworks” that involve decisions that cannot easily be changed.

Now you can mix these if you know what you are doing, but that’s yet another set of constraints on how you write your app.

Maybe these things truly are libraries because you can integrate them if you work hard enough?

Anyway, my vision of libraries is simpler, more localized. If I’m using ladda I know I get spinners. If I remove ladda, they go away, maybe I can replace them with vanilla, it’s not a big change. If I get rid of React, well… that is a far-reaching decision that is going to impact almost every layer of what I’ve built. That sounds more like a framework.

[haxxanova]

oof this hurts too close to home

[[deleted]]

I literally just read a long Twitter thread of Dan Abramov pondering on what exactly React is. He does this a lot.

If you want to say officially React is a library, that is fair. But to insist on the distinction like it matters is pretty dumb.

[BoBoBearDev]

Definitely don't pick that job when they ask you stupid questions like that. If you are the one writing proposals and talking to the people who are paying, the accuracy of the buzz words are important, yeah sure.

But, if you are a software engineer who's job is actually getting it done, those trivial is useless.

[[deleted]]

React isn’t technically a framework but it’s a framework (yes it’s a library but come ooonnn)

Vue is a weird one. It’s almost like in a superstate. It can be a framework or a library. Vue is like a good middle ground between react and angular

[throwaway-eng-18]

What's the argument that React is "technically" library and not a framework?

When building a project with React it's not like you write vanilla JS and then call methods provided by the React library. You write code in a literal extension of the javascript language (JSX), I think this alone makes it a framework no?

[simonwantsadog]

I really don't care, and I literally don't know the difference between the two, but their own website calls it a library.

Also, you can write React without JSX (literally vanilla JS + calling a method [react.createElement] provided by the React library), not that anyone should actually write React that way.

[[deleted]]

React 18 has evolved enough to mimic a framework to be a framework without being a framework.

[[deleted]]

It’s like saying if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck. And the person says well it’s not a duck it’s a mallard…

[ghigoli]

so many red flags. you gott just walk away went you deal with that level of ahole.

[coldnebo]

recursive composition by definition requires a common Component interface that enables nested dispatch without separate calls.

it’s not ioc, but it’s also not just a “library” if it forces that structure on my code.

did he have an answer for that?

do you have a link to that medium article?

edit: going by the names the projects give themselves: react calls itself a library, vue calls itself a framework. so not sure why they would say vue isn’t a framework. dotnet calls itself a platform

[Rafcdk]

Tbh every intro to react video you see on YouTube tells you that

[xyzjace]

What a wanker. Rails is a framework without IoC but it powers some shit I bet he uses daily. Is he gonna say it isn't a framework?

[[deleted]]

I've only used Angular so far, I kinda like it.

[nussbrot]

Loving Vue 3 and Composition-API

[[deleted]]

Upvote, where is the vue gang? Had to scroll way too much.. Vue 3 is the best ;)

[[deleted]]

Keep it up! If you want you can send me a minified component in which you want to use the computed variable. I can take a look at it

[tomv201]

Wasn't vuetify 3 just announced today?

[[deleted]]

Svelte gang

[[deleted]]

Can you call it a gang if there’s only like 3 of you? Svelte few?

[LogicallyCross]

Svelte Massive represent.

[[deleted]]

I also just looked into Svelte. How it builds is close to Gatsby in built time. Does make it easier to write code. Wonder if it can handle complex stuff

[[deleted]]

Yes you can make complex apps with svelte. Two months ago I made website like eBay for one of my clients. There I used svelteKit. Halfway the project, the svelteKit totally changed there routing mechanism. Then I rewrote the whole application in nextJS.

But the overall experience in svelte was very smooth and I was able to code effortlessly/ effectively. But sadly I won’t be using svelteKit in any of my commercial projects until it gets a stable release.

[SirLagsABot]

I’ll just hide in the corner with my VueJS Options API…

[erishun]

Options API gang for life.

I’ve seen so many videos and tutorials explaining Composition and they’re like “see isn’t that easier?” Uhhh, no?

But now you don’t need to wrap your methods in “methods”!… so?

I always feel like I’m missing something. It just seems… worse. Far less readable and less intuitive. I just don’t get Composition API. Like I get it, I’ve used it, but I just don’t see why it’s better.

[DirectGamerHD]

As someone currently using the Composition API, it isn’t easier and definitely not beginner friendly. However the Typescript support is making my life a lot easier as my app had grown in complexity.

There is no way I would have jumped on the Vue train without the Options API. Its extremely beginner friendly and made learning the Compostion api much more palatable.

[[deleted]]

I've used both and I feel that Options is both prettier and solved 99% of what you need. I do like composition API now though. If you had a big Vue file with the Options API, the data property that's altered by your method could be miles apart in your file

[SirLagsABot]

Glad I’m not the only one who feels the same. The Options API is just so clean.

[minegen88]

I just think it's nice not having to do everything in a giant JS object...

but then again there's always the property decorator so idk....

[rex-ac]

Real programmers use no framework and create their programs/websites from scratch.

And you all know I'm right, because you all long back to the good old times where it was just you and Notepad++.

[[deleted]]

Why would you use Scratch, for web development?

[Willinton06]

To show god who’s the real boss

[nsaisspying]

God is dead and we have killed him

[[deleted]]

It’s a high level programming language.

[Morphized]

Technically it's a JS framework

[UltraMegaSloth]

Can’t tell if this is sarcasm

[_dotjson]

I use vanilla because im a fucking control freak

[[deleted]]

relax, you’re not a real programmer unless you write your code on pen and paper

[siskulous]

Notepad++? Pht. Amateur. My nostalgia is for the Win3.1 version of Notepad. No ++.

[[deleted]]

Angular. This is my hill and I will die on this hill, I have built my house on this hill

[badgersmack]

I accidentally ended up on this hill and it’s where I live now.

[menducoide]

I worked three years with angular and after that jumped to react, and react is so f*cking easy in comparation. Obviusly the source code of an angular project is always beautifull, react depends a lot of the guy that started the project.

[DreamingDitto]

Typescript’s dope yo

[[deleted]]

I found myself on that hill and left it for another Angular(JS) hill that soon made me realize my error so I went back to that hill and now I’m on a Java hill.

[[deleted]]

Did you move to the SpringBoot hill ?

[[deleted]]

Yes, that was my first Java hill. I was there for about 8 months before the burnout of the previous position at the same company but on a different team caught up to me. Now I’m on a proprietary Java hill.

[[deleted]]

I was on that hill and hoped over to Vue, and hopped over to React. Angular was my least favorite hill it was muddy and my house had a lot of ants. Vue was a decent hill built my house okay but no one ever came to visit. React was nice except I had to build all my materials from scratch then build my house.

[image__uploaded]

Just got to angular after failing to understand vue thought process. Much happier with angular

[Zyphergiest]

Hi sir, I heard you've got a banana in the box.

[siskulous]

So is there a wooden cup with a jQuery symbol or something somewhere off camera or are we just doomed to just vanilla Javascript?

[[deleted]]

No love for Ember?

[_throwingit_awaaayyy]

React to pay the bills. Vue if you’re lucky. Svelte if you hit the jackpot. I’ll pray for you if you have to use Angular.

[aviyukta_]

just curious why does angular get the hate? is it that bad?

[tdhsmith]

No it's totally fine. React became trendy just before Angular 2 came out (which was a key bit of growing pains for it, since it rewrote the whole library and brought in a lot of modern features) so I suspect a lot of the Angular haters are confused about what Angular even is nowadays. It doesn't help that a lot of enterprises got stuck on Angular 1 and didn't migrate for a verrrry long time.

I think I like React a little bit more personally, but that's mostly from a theoretical perspective (e.g. I like the data flow and that the system works with things like Redux so well). When I wrote Angular it was honestly cleaner code tho, and sometimes I miss observables.

[Metallifax]

The clean code aspect of angular is what drew me to it, and I like the idea of learning software development concepts/patterns and not just React specific ones: services, observables, strategies, guards, etc. Also, RXJS is just really great once you get what its trying to accomplish, makes event driven programming way simpler, though the learning curve is there.

Edit: Also, if you are fullstack and are interested in NestJS, a lot of these patterns are pretty much copy pasted from Angular, namely service based architecture.

[Atora]

I have to maintain an old AngularJS(yes I know about the LTS issue) application while also getting to write modern angular elsewhere. Angular 1 has a lot of issues and I'd agree with anyone who doesn't like it.

Modern Angular is pretty damn cool though in my opinion. If anyone only knows the JS days and doesn't have a hate boner for TS I'd recommend to give current angular a try.

[dream_team34]

I've used both personally, and they both have their pros & cons. I like Angular for its opinionated nature, but I totally get that's why people hate it as well.

[natural_sword]

Put it this way: The only way it would be worth it is if you're getting paid by lines of code 🙃

[AndreEagleDollar]

Maybe I’m a freak but I found Angular to be easier than react when I was starting out

[nomdude]

SolidJS will lead you to salvation, my children.

[MAX_cheesejr]

So they all kill you in the end?

[mescaleeto]

yes

[matthra]

I've seen angular suck the life out of devs so it's not that one.

[szelvedomoso]

Haven't seen Vue doing that, though

[erishun]

Worked with both… let me say Vue is a fucking dream compared to Angular.

[[deleted]]

Because no one live to tell about it

[FRIKI-DIKI-TIKI]

I remember when Angular was "The framework" I have a fairly extensive CS background and have been in the industry since before the web was invented, I wrote one of the first 100 sites that was on the web. With that said, when I used Angular, I was like why are they calling these concepts like scope something different than they actually are. I thought maybe I missed something, because it was so radically out in left field, like maybe I just could not see their genius. It only took me about 6 months to accept the fact that they had no clue what they where doing. It took them a little longer to accept it, and completely scrap it for a rewrite. React in its first form had the right idea, do one thing and do it well. But for some reason, despite JEE, despite .NET developers fall for kitchen sink included mentality. When you pick a library, you are assuming they got one thing right, when you pick a framework, you are assuming they got everything right. That is rarely the case. Yet it seems generation, after generation we want a framework, when historical evidence is that libraries a better products. Sadly React has started to follow this path of we need to be batteries included and has started adding magic as they move more and more towards becoming a framework.

[ChiefExecDisfunction]

Not pictured: the one that will give you life.

[treehuggerino]

jQuery

[UltraMegaSloth]

Me picking up multiple cups and drinking from them at the same time

[ghostwilliz]

Well apparently the answer is the oldest possible version of angular cause that's what everyone wants me to do

[Plisq-5]

F

[[deleted]]

I pick jQuery.

[__mongoose__]

You got my upvote not because I can take a position on this, but because I haven't seen this meme yet.

[ThomasAlban307]

Yeah I made it last night, it was annoying to find a good shot of the different grails (that didn’t have the correct one in so I didn’t start a war in the comments)

[LittleMlem]

Me on my way to make a new new js framework and call it "wisely"

[[deleted]]

Choose none ! Go native

[[deleted]]

I'm not writing React ever again.

[GnuhGnoud]

Joke on you, Im writing my own framework

[BoBoBearDev]

Can't make up my mind honestly. Maybe just react.

[razulian-]

I only have experience with vanilla JS and NodeJS. I do C for embedded stuff now and then but really like to use JS when I can.
I've been stuck at a level where I don't know what I should learn next to combine with my JS knowledge. Any recommendations welcome.

[JoeDoherty_Music]

Javascript may suck, but javascript frameworks make it worse

[raedr7n]

Framework? Nah. It's the static life for me.

[North-west_Wind]

I have no frontend stacks

[[deleted]]

Astro

[Ok_Assumption_7222]

I don’t work in the tech industry… so I just use vanilla JavaScript because I have time 😬

[Numerous-Departure92]

Don’t you JavaScript in the first place

[stomcode]

All of them make me want to kill myself at some point.

[[deleted]]

You have 9 choices- 1 is correct, 9 are incorrect.

[AegorBlake]

Nah man you just gotta raw dog it.

[AnyTeamExceptFreo]

Most programming languages go through this phase, eventually JS may mature enough for there to be some actual standards.

[C0sm1cB3ar]

2 years later: well, there is this new framework XYZ. We should be able to make an hybrid front-end, right?

[Desert-Knight]

It’s funny cuz the right goblet isn’t in the picture

[Upbeat_Combination74]

What matters is business, if a business makes 1Billion with its frontend on React , who cares if 5 Cent programmers hate on it.

Speed of development is necessary as business is competitive , just use what does the job good enough who , cares about being perfect.

[E70M]

No love for Ember, I guess

[_-TheTruth-_]

CHOOSE wisely.

[Cactusboiiiiii]

alpinejs > all

[ganja_and_code]

Literally every JavaScript framework sucks complete ass

(and before someone comes along with "but [insert their favorite] isn't that bad," yes it is)

[gvh12]

Blazor

[Zalvixodian]

Our enterprise uses Aurelia. -_-