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The time is right for a DOM templating API

(justinfagnani.com)

218 points mdhb | 1 comments | 26 Jun 25 19:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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upghost ◴[27 Jun 25 03:56 UTC] No.44393571[source]▶

>>44390452 (OP) #

Is there anyone else who feels kinda like declarative templating is actually kind of worse than jQuery? Don't get me wrong, I've been using React for nearly a decade. But the more complex my SPAs become, the more I wish I had imperative control of the DOM.

I think the reason is because the DOM is a leaky abstraction and at some level I would just prefer last write wins.

I realize declarative templating is supposed to handle that, but this starts to break down really quickly when you share mutable state between components.

replies(3): >>44393652 #>>44396262 #>>44401772 #

1. bapak ◴[27 Jun 25 12:24 UTC] No.44396262[source]▶

I don’t like React but I disagree with this sentiment. First of all you can already opt out of declarative DOM and knock yourself out with innerHTML and ref.

Second, what can you do with imperative control of the DOM that is less practical with the declarative one? I can only think of certain methods (attachShadow(), showModal()) but even then you're a 10-line component away from making it declarative.