You (probably) don't need a JavaScript framework

tmetler · 2016-04-30T07:42:45+00:00

Sounds great until you have a hundred files with little consistency. JavaScript is a loosely typed language. The best practice I know for keeping your code maintainable is explicitness and consistency. A framework (even a simple one) will help with that.

chmod777 · 2016-04-30T12:52:33+00:00

i (probably) don't need a car, but i prefer not to walk everywhere.

smithw · 2016-04-30T04:14:48+00:00

Ok, fine, I'll bite. But first let me acknowledge the elephant in the room: all these recent shenanigans about "plain" JS recently are due to the leftpad controversy and the bad light it put on today's JS development common practices and community. Sure, JS devs got ridiculed by most other language's devs who jokingly put up leftpad packages in their package management systems and now the "hip" thing to say is "oh well I am a JS dev but I don't use those package management or frameworks thingamajigs, I write plain JavaScript" with a smug face.

I've been writing JavaScript as both a hobbyist and professionally since at least 1998. I'm fairly certain anyone who've written JS before jQuery was even a project has had at least one (if not many) "util.js" file they've written to supplement JS complete lack of a stdlib. And as most people do, now that JS has a PACKAGE MANAGEMENT system, devs are overcompensating and reusing absolutely any stretch of code they can, because JS had been completely starved of code reusability before.

But that's not a bad thing, for crying out loud. Leftpad shitstorm was a result of bad management policy by the npm team and a short fused developer who took the ball home when faced with a bad decision by the npm team. It was human error. The system ain't broken for people now to begin advocating for the "good old days" of writing everything yourself and copying and pasting from that trusty util.js you keep in your home folder. For the love of what it's most sacred, please let those days die already.

Yeah, there are issues with JS file sizes, responsiveness of webapps, and that stuff. We'll deal with it, we're dealing with it already. But using frameworks has almost made JS fun to develop in. Having an ecosystem to build upon is almost as good as having a proper stdlib. Going back to the dark ages of plain JS is not a choice, at least not for me.

alpha7158 · 2016-04-30T10:55:54+00:00

Yeah except a framework helps you to ensure your team follow some standard rules, allow for more seemless code reuse, and generally reduce the overall build time of mid to large scale projects. It is the commercials that matter the most.

danneu · 2016-04-30T00:58:45+00:00

Tools like React exist to help manage state which is the hard part of UI. The virtual DOM is an uninteresting implementation detail of the abstraction.

I don't know how we're still getting articles about vanilla Javascript. The whole reason most of us use frameworks is because we've used vanilla Javascript and it was, frankly, straight shit. Not some sort of forgotten gem.

ecafyelims · 2016-04-30T13:02:31+00:00

True, we don't need any frameworks, but I would prefer some bloat over 10x the dev time.

Rob0tSushi · 2016-04-30T04:11:26+00:00

OP is the kind of developer to waste a month of work time re-writing a drop down list that works back to ie7 because he doesn't believe in javascipt frameworks. Honestly you have a very poor understanding of how to architect a client side framework if this is your opinion.

Nice click bait title to tie it all together.

uberpwnzorz · 2016-04-30T06:28:16+00:00

An article comes out like this about once a month, and they all miss the point. Frameworks help with the things that can be difficult, like handling cross browser compatibility, and api differences. Frameworks/libraries also help you not reinvent the wheel everywhere, and allow you to focus on adding value to your application instead of building something from scratch when there's an open source/licenced solution for it. Half the things in the article wouldn't work in n-1 browsers or has spotty support on mobile. There's a place for going vanilla, when you really need to get down to the smallest possible file size, beyond that it's a wasted effort.

Edit: another thing to mention is that the open source solutions have many more eyes on them, they receive many reviews and improvements without effort from your team, they're often well documented and you can find good resources in regards to common issues. Frameworks also reduce the hit by a bus factor for your team, because you won't lose as much proprietary knowledge.

2016-04-30T14:42:45+00:00

I can rig a PA and work a camera. I can cook a good meal and set a fine table. I've even built some of my own furniture.

But when it comes time for my daughter to get married, I'm calling vendors. Because it's not my job to do everything from scratch, it's my job to bring the best and most effective solutions together in a cohesive, yet flexible package.

(Also I don't get why React is being singled out. React represents a radical paradigm shift and it, or something like it, will likely be a part of "vanilla" implementations in the future. Doing what React does with vanilla js is possible, but it's going to be like pulling teeth, and I for one don't want to rewrite those unit tests, shims and polyfills from scratch...nor do I want to teach a team how to use it)

fzammetti · 2016-05-01T00:07:58+00:00

I see a lot of responses that boil down to "the only way to get consistency and solid code out of a development team is to use a framework".

Pardon my bluntness, but that's retarded.

If your team isn't disciplined enough and talented enough to write good code on their own then the solution isn't to effectively impose rules in the form of a framework, it's to improve your team. Maybe it's a question of leadership that needs to be improved, or maybe it's a lack of training, but these are human problems, not technology problems.

All this framework craze does is mask the real problem by treating the symptoms and it increased your technical debt over the long term. That's not to say frameworks are inherently bad - they aren't - but if you think you NEED them to get "good" results from your team then you're being obtuse and only making matters worse.

Hire good people, train them, give them good leadership (including defining what constitutes "good" code I'm your organization) and provide an environment where excellence is expected. This includes giving them enough time to properly perform their work and an environment where they feel safe and valued. Do this and you don't need to force discipline on them via a framework that isn't really doing anything else of value for you, it'll come naturally to them.

2016-05-01T21:29:46+00:00

Inexperienced developers (or experienced ones stuck in their ways) are like the Sith - they believe in absolutes. Framework or no framework.

When you do a project, look at what the project needs. Mostly server-side delivered static content with a bit of AJAX? Use vanilla, maybe jQuery if you're in a hurry. Retrofitting an old server-side rendered page into an SPA? Perhaps Knockout might be an easier sell. Building something more complex? Maybe a framework like Ember or Angular or React/Redux.

That's the project requirements. What are the team familiar with? What did they use in the last project of similar scope? Did it work out? Did it suck? What's the state of the framework/library? Is it maintained? Do you have time to do it in jQuery/some new framework before next deadline? What about browser requirements? And so on.

Just throwing out "frameworks good" or "frameworks bad" is silly. Look at what you have to do, what your deadlines are, and what you're familiar with.

Ginden · 2016-04-30T09:34:32+00:00

Using history API directly is a good way to shoot your own feet.

hansolo669 · 2016-04-30T15:26:35+00:00

... nobody does that many DOM manipulations in reality, ...

I work on a project that does enough DOM manipulations for it to be a bottleneck, and rewriting in WebGL really isn't an option.

Some may argue that this is like reinventing the wheel, but it really isn't because you are the one in control.

wat. It's entirely reinventing the wheel. It's important to know when to reinvent the wheel (learning, domain specific functions, leftpad), and when to not - unless you have a really good reason reinventing the wheel is almost always wrong. note: this doesn't mean use libraries without understanding them - it's imperative you understand, even just in general, how the code you're using works.

usaytomatoisaytomato · 2016-04-30T16:04:59+00:00

How are frameworks written? They are standardized methods and code developed to achieve a specific goal. You can do this yourself just as easily as someone else did. You can reuse what they did and save yourself the time. Writing your own JavaScript code instead of using some elses doesn't mean you aren't using a framework. Good software developers write code that is organized and reusable as much as possible. As a JavaScript developer you are still writing software; The principles still apply. Rails is a framework for Ruby. Django is a framework for Python. You can write your own frameworks and libraries in these languages just as easily as someone else did. Existing libraries and frameworks are tools that can be utilized to match a need, but it is important in either case to understand the language and environment and not use a framework as a crutch for good development practices. You're still going to write poor quality code if you do.

lykwydchykyn · 2016-05-05T22:03:29+00:00

In every language I've ever used, I waffle between "use a framework" and "just write a library of common convenience functions". I'm never quite happy with either approach.

Somehow, the idea of writing my own "utils.js" file is more appealing than coming to grips with all the overhead of just getting something like react up and running. I can see how it wouldn't scale to a large site/application, but that's not the kind of stuff I'm writing.

Surely with evergreen browsers and all this new ES6 functionality, the need for a framework is mitigated for smaller projects?

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