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Next.js is infuriating

(blog.meca.sh)
1033 points Bogdanp | 4 comments | 02 Sep 25 06:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.624s | source
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YuukiRey ◴[02 Sep 25 10:04 UTC] No.45101009[source]▶
I 100% agree. I've ran into the same issues, and I would never use Next.js for anything, and I will encourage every team at work to use something else.

In general Next.js has so many layers of abstraction that 99.9999% of projects don't need. And the ones that do are probably better off building a bespoke solution from lower level parts.

Next.js is easily the worst technology I've ever used.

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jbreckmckye ◴[02 Sep 25 11:00 UTC] No.45101378[source]▶
My experience with Next.js are that its rough edges are a feature, not a bug. Everything is geared towards you giving up and just using Vercel's hosting
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a2tech ◴[02 Sep 25 13:07 UTC] No.45102624[source]▶
Working with a client just last month that hired an African engineering group to build a tool for them. What they got delivered was a Next.js train wreck that was so coupled to Vercel's hosting that I couldn't make it run successfully anywhere else. The customer was a non-profit and didn't want to/couldn't afford Vercel's hosting so asked if I could try and make it run and I (naively) thought 'its just javascript, it should run anywhere!' and I took a run at it.

After a week of futzing with it I just threw up my hands and said 'no can do'. I couldn't untangle the spaghetti JS and piles of libraries. 'Compiling' would complete and if you looked at the output it was clearly missing tons of bits but never threw an error. Just tons of weirdness from the toolchain to the deployment platform.

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1. throwaway2562 ◴[02 Sep 25 13:29 UTC] No.45102862[source]▶
Here come the police, ever-vigilant for perceived or potential slights. Bless you, Officer.
2. snickerdoodle12 ◴[02 Sep 25 13:34 UTC] No.45102908[source]▶
Yup, we do. Mind you, I'm not an american. But we often say something like "the americans" or other less flattering terms.
3. dkarl ◴[02 Sep 25 13:43 UTC] No.45103017[source]▶
When I read "African engineering group" I felt an instant "ugh" of recognition, based on my experience with software created by external consultants on other continents. My experiences were with groups in Asia and Europe, not Africa, so I think what the poster successfully evoked was the experience of dealing with differences of distance, culture, time zone, and commercial interest (engineers answerable to different management and a different bottom line,) all of which tend to produce inferior software compared to what gets produced for in-house use or sale in the SaaS market.
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4. a2tech ◴[02 Sep 25 13:52 UTC] No.45103136[source]▶
Exactly--bad work can be from anywhere. However working with contractors at this kind of distance, through a language barrier, with different societal norms (for example, the US project manager was a woman, and the programmers just completely ignored things she said. If myself or another man was present, they completely changed their tone and would immediately act on things we said. Our project manager was pretty much ignored or steam rolled at every turn) is extremely difficult.