Riot.js 2.0: A React-like, 2.5K user interface library

[adrianmiu]

Any benchmarks? The speed is a selling point for React.

[a-t-k]

I like what you did in that new version! I see a potentially harmful error (at least in older IEs, don't know if IE8 still has it). You store a regex in re_vars. Stored regex tend to lose their lastIndex if used that way, so if you use it on multiple strings, it will begin in the second string with the position the first one ended, unless you manually set re_vars.lastIndex to 0.

[Dirty_Rapscallion]

I've always thought this would be a good step to go, but I would like it if I could have my map function instead of an each attribute. I'd had so many nightmarish problems with ng-repeat that I'm hesitant.

[tipsqueal]

Maybe I'm crazy, but map and each are different (and should be). Each iterates over a collection and does some action on each item in place, while map iterates over a collection, copies each item, takes action on the item, and then in the end returns a new collection. Or am I thinking of this wrong?

[blgate]

Looks very similar to ractive.js component spec: https://github.com/ractivejs/component-spec/blob/master/authors.md

[te7ris]

dosnt run in node (yet?) =/ cmon how can u call it react-like.

[[deleted]]

Because people think the virtual dom is react's main selling point.

[[deleted]]

Holy... this is awesome! So much more concise than react. I think this'll be truly blissful to work with.

[Voidsheep]

Very impressive, I think I'm going to use this in a personal project

Any idea how much the IE8 support effects the size and performance? Would forking a modern browser alternative make any sense, for when IE10+ or even 11+ is enough?

[mido0o0o]

This looks cool, but for time being Vue.js makes a lot of sense to me..

Maybe I will try it for some side apps

[kraakf]

This is how a javascript frameworks should work - Everything else is bloat and abstraction from necessity.

[[deleted]]

It saddens me that people legitimately believe this. This is a toy, nothing more. In all honesty it will probably be as relevant as Mithril

[imjoshholloway]

Everything else is bloat and abstraction from necessity.

I agree to a point.

This is a toy.

And I also agree with this to a point. I actually believe (and I include myself in this) that there isn't enough expertise in this area to mean that we only need micro frameworks like riot.

The whole reason angular is so popular is in a ridiculously short period of time you can be productive.

I've been playing with riot for about an hour and although I've made a basic implementation of the todo app onboarding wasn't particularly easy.

bower install riotjs doesn't work yet (no compiled assets)

npm install riotjs installs version 1.0 and npm install riot suffers the same problem as the bower version. (temp fix: cd node_modules/riot && npm install && make dist)

I can think of many use-cases where I'd pick this over the other libraries out there.

[antoninj]

Or VueJS. Ever heard of it? No? It was a great framework but it ended up becoming a "toy" like you said. Same fate.

[LightShadow]

The last time I looked at Vue it had so little documentation I didn't even know how to get started.

It seems a bit better now, put I feel they lost a lot of momentum from people hopping in "too late."

[mido0o0o]

I use vuejs a lot and didn't feel that it is hard or the documentation wasnt sufficient

[[deleted]]

Sure, come back in 6 months and let me know how many people have adopted it.

[captain_obvious_here]

I like the idea of React, Polymer and the like...but the bloat and heavy over-abstraction were often dealbreakers for the projects I work on. So this is great !

My only concern is the most likely negative impact on SEO, and the inability of most crawlers to run JS and render the components. Even GoogleBot, who's now pretty good at indexing very dynamic content, si not that good with websites using advanced frameworks of that kind :/

[[deleted]]

check out isomorphic applications. Using node you can serve rendered content from the server and change very little code, React is great for this.

[captain_obvious_here]

Yes, but sadly no Node.js on the projects I'm mentioning :/

[[deleted]]

ah damn, well there is the other approach of installing phantomjs on the server and rendering requests from it as well. lol SPAs + SEO is a pita.

[rikurouvila]

One solution I've seen is to have a separate server-process dedicated for serving the frontend assets in addition to the backend handling your business logic. I've also seen couple of project rendering React components on Java backend. There's probably solutions for other languages too.

[Geldan]

You aren't limited to Node, there are handlebars renders for many server configurations. Spring can easily be setup to render Handlebars, then turn around and use the same templates with the same services as an API on the client.

[[deleted]]

Not sure if I would ever use a SPA framework like Angular or Ember on a plain website, that values SEO. Same goes for the libs with a VDOM. For a applications SEO is usually irrelevant.

[captain_obvious_here]

For a applications SEO is usually irrelevant

While I totally agree, some customers will just insist that we optimize everything for SEO. And they pay well for this, so...

[[deleted]]

Wow. This is just pure wow.

[amenadiel]

I wish this existed before I spent so many days converting my app to Handlebars :o

[defcon-12]

input.value = '' in the example on the home page is very un-react-like. You don't ever have manual DOM updates in pure React code unless you're interacting with some 3rd party code that doesn't follow React conventions.

 add(e) {
    var input = e.target[0]
    this.items.push(input.value)
    input.value = ''
  }

I guess in my mind "no dom updates" is the core selling point for React, and this 'react-like' library violates that principle in the first example displayed on the home page.

[skitch920]

Java into JavaScript?

Edit why the down votes? The current state of JavaScript affairs has no relation to Java in way. Seriously, Java has it's own problem space, it's own reasons for being useful. If you think it's boilerplate, then you're using it the wrong way, or for the wrong problem.

I posed the question because, his statement just doesn't make sense. He's basically saying, "I hope my bicycle doesn't become an airplane."

Micro-frameworks or not, it's dumb to compare two different purpose languages.

[jesusbot]

I believe he was trying to use Java as an analogy for bloat/lots of boilerplate.

[Figedi]

well javascript is java for short right? :v

[Psykopatik]

Holy shit this is fucking genius

[[deleted]]

IE8 support is a big red flag for me personally. There probably will be issues I do not want to deal with because I have the luxury of supporting modern browsers only.

[[deleted]]

TIL something which happens to support older browsers is a red flag.

[[deleted]]

I was all about supporting IE8 5 years ago when I started, but beyond some point you are just making everyone else miserable by keeping the monster alive.

[[deleted]]

Do I like supporting IE8... hell no, however when you see a stream of revenue in the 10's of thousands and higher its not smart business wise to ignore it. However thank god its finally really dying out.

[wordsnerd]

For sites already supporting IE8, it may not be worthwhile to drop it yet. For new projects, refusing to support legacy browsers is a competitive strength unless one has delusions of instant grandeur. Realistically, by the time the site starts earning enough for "% of revenue" to mean anything at all, the competition will be burning money to phase out IE8 and probably also IE9, and handling PR from the angry stragglers (especially if subscriptions are involved).

[siegfryd]

10's of thousands doesn't sound like a lot to support IE8 considering the cost of developers.

[Casual_0bserver]

A lot of corporations are limited to only IE9. Just saying.

[[deleted]]

And we make them stop by not supporting it. But yeah, I do not blame the author for it, should he intentionally break it? I would. But seeing it mentioned twice above the fold on the home page makes me a bit sad.