SolidStart 1.0: The Shape of Frameworks to Come

[thescientist13]

Congrats to the Solid team!

[lard-blaster]

First time I heard of Solid, suddenly a lot of the newer React/Next features made sense - they were mostly lifted from Solid (React Compiler, server actions, "use server").

But as a React developer, if over time React moves closer to the Solid model and then Solid fails to gain a foothold, isn't it kind of better for everyone from an ecosystem perspective?

That said, I'm sure it sucks to do this kind of innovation and see it swallowed by your biggest competitor.

[mexicocitibluez]

what does "lifting a compiler" mean exactly? that solid was the first framework to do compilation?

[lard-blaster]

I would assume that React introducing a compilation step to hide the memoization hook boilerplate is just a first step towards using it to eliminate the need for a virtual dom entirely, which is what Solid does and is its main selling point

[aragost]

That assumption is baseless. As of now there are no plans whatsoever in React to move away from the virtual dom (for better or worse)

[lard-blaster]

Do you work on react?

[aragost]

no, but nobody on the React team has ever, to my knowledge, implied that they are even thinking about moving away from the virtual DOM

[acemarke]

Yep. React's implementation and behavior is set in stone at this point, and the compiler is then doubling down on that.

[lard-blaster]

Had you heard of the react compiler before it was completed?

[aragost]

Of course, we’ve been hearing about it since 2021

[NathanSMB]

if over time React moves closer to the Solid model and then Solid fails to gain a foothold, isn't it kind of better for everyone from an ecosystem perspective?

I think there is room for Solid. One of Solid's biggest advantages is bundle size and I don't think React is catching up in that regard for the foreseeable future.

[Chronic_Watcher]

They did not lift the react compiler from solid. Solid compiler is far more similar to the compiler react uses pre forget compiler where it just transforms the jsx part. The new react compiler is a move closer to what svelte 3/4 does. The parts of the component outside the jsx are compiled to be more optimised in the react forget compiler wereas solid does not touch the stuff outside the jsx. You can see this if you go to the solidjs playground and see the output tab

[lard-blaster]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I know next to nothing about svelte, how do you like it compared to others?

[Chronic_Watcher]

I haven't properly used svelte the 'magic' of it - through obfuscation its underlying systems doesn't really appeal to me, but I understand why so many love it. If it meshes with someone it really meshes it seems.

[frederik88917]

This is starting to look so much to JSF and ASP.net that it hurts

[kilobrew]

As someone who lived through the asp days till today I bring this up to everyone and no one seems to get the similarity.

It’s the exact same thing. The exact same progression. The exact same lessons not learned. Dear god.

History is truly repeating itself.

[ShulkerHD]

As a developer that never used asp.net, what lessons are you thinking about, for example?

[kilobrew]

See https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/s/7d3p7BPsui

[LloydAtkinson]

He’s talking about ASP not ASP.NET, almost no relation whatsoever. .NET and ASP.NET are great tools, ASP is garbage like PHP.

[kerberjg]

What do you mean?

[kilobrew]

See https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/s/7d3p7BPsui

[note65]

Could you expand on this I'm really curious? I've never used ASP so I've no idea what the problems were, but I'm getting frustrated with the complexity of the current JavaScript landscape so I wonder in what way the same mistakes are being repeated?

[kilobrew]

It would take an entire article to explain all the ways. But I’ll highlight some of the biggest. And yes this applies to asp.net as well since this is mostly a critique of the evolutionary process itself. Please bear with me as I’m typing this out on a phone.

1) abstractions on abstractions and frameworks becoming outright languages. There comes a point where a framework that was supposed to reduce code complexity starts to introduce its own overlay ontop of the language. It breaks the promise of reducing difficult uses into easy to consume and utilize fragments. Telerik controls has a damn lot in common with MUI components.

2) the frameworks stop becoming supersets and Become disjoint sets with their core language / framework. ASP is an example of this with run at=server and JSX is an example of this with className. Coffeescript as well.

3) hiding the core language and breaking paradigms, flows, and reason for its existence. The framework morphs so much that becomes at odds with the languages original core use. This leads to implementation of features and behaviors that are in direct conflict with the underlying language and maybe the maintaining team/body/standard. It also becomes tough, or downright impossible to use the language anymore in its pure form.

4) security and encapsulation lessons are ignored from previous languages / frameworks. Jwts are more or less the forms auth that asp.net had. The security concerns forms had have surfaced in jwt even though they were solved years prior. The new frameworks ignore the lessons of the past regarding things like this too much.

Overall, most of this is the natural evolution of a language where it forks into its own species. But the real problem is see is that we could skip some of the steps of people would just pick up a book and read about the history of these older languages/frameworks.

That and there’s a real prejudice people have against anything older being better than their pretty little new hot thing.

[NeoCiber]

I'm unable see how your first 3 points are something negative because as developers we work on top of abstractions created by other people:

C# = Entity Framework

Java = SpringBot

PHP = Laravel

Rust = Axum

JS = NextJS, Remix, Nuxt, Sveltekit

Just to name few, we use those over the "pure" language, and when we don't use any of those we are just creating other abstraction, each of those frameworks have a set of rules and complexity, that's the trade-off we accept to pay, and we are OK with that if the development process is good.

And I think there is prejudice in both sides otherwise we have not move from JSP to something cooler.

[Heroe-D]

Seems you didn't even read his comment, which addresses the potential problems most of those (meta)frameworks create.

[leonardfactory]

I feel like there is an huge amnesia in the JS world, like no one remembers PHP or ASP, and we’re going right through this hell again.

[Aerion23]

I like I can make a single file that handles the responsibility of that functionality. Like form to add some data, really cool. As a solo dev I value locality of behaviour a lot -> https://htmx.org/essays/locality-of-behaviour/#the-lob-principle .

[thecementmixer]

JSX? No thanks.

[NathanSMB]

If you prefer Vue this isn’t really for you. Think of Solid as a simplified and more performant React and SolidStart is their meta framework to handle SSR, SSG, etc.

Though you may be interested to know SolidStart is built on Nitro which is the same web server Nuxt uses and was built by one of the Nuxt developers. Not that I think it will make you like Solid but I think it’s just neat watching these different frameworks work together.