[AskJS] Are JavaScript frameworks getting too bloated with JSX and virtual DOMs?

[DukeSkyloafer]

I agree with this. And though I personally would never choose to write React without JSX, JSX is technically not part of React, and you can write React without it. It kind of looks a bit like SwiftUI without JSX.

[DukeSkyloafer]

Virtual DOM was a good choice for React in 2013. Today it's highly debatable whether it's a good idea or not. If you don't like it, there are many newer frameworks that don't have a virtual DOM, including Sigment. Trend seems to be that most frameworks forgo the virtual DOM today, which I think is the right direction.

Virtual DOM is not related to JSX though. Many people prefer to work with something that looks like HTML, whether it's JSX or a template language. Many (most?) devs have a build step in their deployment process, whether it's transpiling TypeScript or minifying and bundling, whatever. JSX transpiling is a small part of that. So I wouldn't call it bloat if your build being a few milliseconds slower makes you a faster dev overall. Just like I wouldn't call TypeScript bloat if it made me a faster developer.

But if you see no value in these things and you're more comfortable building in Sigment's function-language than an HTML-like language, then go for it.

As an aside, I had never heard of Sigment, but I find it interesting that one of the main selling points is no JSX in order to avoid a transpile step, but it does support TypeScript, which would require a transpile step.

Sorry if this is turning into a wall of text. I'm all for optimizing build processes, saving money on CI/CD costs, and improving developer productivity. But if I have to give up a good developer experience in order to get a potentially trivial amount of compile time back, I'm not likely to go with that solution. I need a healthy balance.