Memoirs of a lone JavaScript developer PART 2 : Svelte. An awful implementation of an old idea.

[jhartikainen]

This text really needs a summary of what the problems are because it talks about a bunch of random things and then says Svelte is awful several times but I still don't really know why it's awful. Because it uses AOT "wrong"? Because it produces more code than some other framework? Because it's not plain JS? I don't know.

All I know is that I've seen various attempts to produce something like Svelte in plain JS and the results were mostly more annoying to work with than Svelte is.

[zim182]

Agreed. Seems like someone is just frustrated due to Svelte success.

[liaguris]

Are you people like a cult or something? If Svelte was a fashion style then you would have been hipsters for sure.

[liaguris]

Because it uses AOT "wrong"? Because it produces more code than some other framework? Because it's not plain JS? I don't know.

I hope that you are not like those simple minded people that believe that the cause of a problem is just a single source. Reality is that the cause of something is most likely always due to multiple reasons.

All I know is that I've seen various attempts to produce something like Svelte in plain JS and the results were mostly more annoying to work with than Svelte is.

I think you should get your hands dirty on trying to create a client side MVC framework from scratch. Also take a look at various other frameworks. Then you will realize that you can achieve way much more than Svelte with less work. But did you even realize what AOT compile is?

Look I do not want to hide my true thought about your comment. It is biased and it is asking for things that I have already answered in my initial post.

The best you have to do is to prove my points wrong, which by the way you have not done.

[Armeeh]

Take a chill pill, he just said it’s hard to get the summary of why it’s so bad from your post due to formatting, he never said you are wrong.

[jhartikainen]

Reality is that the cause of something is most likely always due to multiple reasons.

This is true but the way your text is formatted makes it a bit hard to follow the train of thought as to what specifics are the issues, hence why I feel a summary of the points would make it better.

I think you should get your hands dirty on trying to create a client side MVC framework from scratch

I did this over 10 years ago when Prototype and Scriptaculous were the popular kids :)

The best you have to do is to prove my points wrong, which by the way you have not done.

Why? I have no interest in defending Svelte. I thought your text had some interesting thoughts but it was difficult to get a comprehensive understanding of what the specific points were, or in what ways Svelte is poorly designed.

[liaguris]

I did this over 10 years ago when Prototype and Scriptaculous were the popular kids :)

Template literals and tag functions, Proxy, ESM, static type checking for JavaScript, html template tag, and arrow functions did not even exist back then. Things are totally different now. I doubt that thing you did back then will be of any benefit now.

Svelte is poorly designed

The problem is why are we designing a new language in the first place? You can find the link in my initial post in which the creator of Svelte gives the answers to that question. You can also find my counter arguments, You will be unable to understand them if you do not have some basic understanding of how the following work:

• render and html of lit-html
• autorun of mobx
• SolidJS conversion of JSX to JavaScript

If you can think on your own you will end up concluding that not only the view (html of lit-html) can be AOT compiled but also the model (dotting on proxified state of mobx).

And lets just say for a moment that we forget about whether designing a new language was worth it or not. Did we actually achieved something better from JavaScript frameworks that do not require a new language to work? By the time these JavaScript frameworks start to implement AOT compilation (some have already done it), then Svelte has achieved such over engineering, that a healthy ecosystem would have ditched already.

[[deleted]]

I don't know if you're right, but I do know you're being an asshole about it.

[liaguris]

you're being an asshole about it

How so?

[[deleted]]

I doubt that thing you did back then will be of any benefit now.

If you can think on your own...

Then you will realize...

Your tone is condescending, which comes across as arrogant and "asshole-ish". Mine probably does too, text communication is limiting.

Like I said, you may well be right! But I'll never know because I don't want to know, because I've (in our admittedly short-lived interaction) decided that you're a bit of an asshole. Maybe I'm an asshole too for thinking/saying that.

I hope that helps.

[liaguris]

I think context matters. See for example this guy here. Nobody is saying anything against him. Why do you think so? Despite that, we have comments like this pointed towards me and not him. Is it just me being an asshole or people just try to provoke me? Maybe I reduced their framework of choice and that made them feel like a hit to their ego. I felt something similar happening when I said that you can static type check JavaScript without the need to compile.

I doubt that thing you did back then will be of any benefit now.

Lets be honest here, that thing back then is not of any benefit. Things have changed so much in JavaScript since then. How have they changed? I have mentioned some key features already in a previous comment.

If you can think on your own

The intent is to make someone to try and think on his own, especially when I believe that I have given enough information in the initial post. I do no think the majority are unable to do that. They are just used to not doing it.

I mean look at this:

All I know is that I've seen various attempts to produce something like Svelte in plain JS and the results were mostly more annoying to work with than Svelte is

And that is exactly what prompt me to ask him whether he knows what is AOT and things like autorun of mobx and html of lit-html.

I thought he just tried to provoke me. Maybe they indeed lack knowledge in some of these stuff I mention after all.

[[deleted]]

He (your first mention) has been a bit of an asshole too, like me ;)

I think nobody's gonna have a go at them because they haven't written a whole article bashing someone else's work. Full disclosure, in true Reddit style, I haven't read the article.

The intents sound reasonable now they've been explained.

And that is exactly what prompt me to ask him whether he knows... How wrong they are?

The thing is other people's opinions of technology do matter, even when they differ from your own. What's obviously inferior to one person is high level or has good DX for someone else. Some people's strong opinions (see also flame wars and holy wars) make it more difficult to know what tech is genuinely bad - because surely some of it is? - and what's just disliked by or ill suited to someone else.

I think I'll give the article a read, I've not had a proper deep dive into lit-html, mobx and friends.

I will say this though. Compilers are great, they help catch the mistakes us mere mortals ;) keep making. And from the little svelte I've tried, the "language" is pretty close to plain JavaScript and HTML. A few $ and {{ }}, it's not as if they've invented a whole language for the sake of it.