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Next.js is infuriating

(blog.meca.sh)
1033 points Bogdanp | 11 comments | 02 Sep 25 06:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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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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motorest ◴[02 Sep 25 12:12 UTC] No.45102069[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.

Things will get far worse before they get better. Right now, online courses such as the ones in PluralSight are pushing Next.js on virtually all courses related to React. I have no idea what ill-advised train of thought resulted in this sad state of affairs but here we are.

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felipeccastro ◴[02 Sep 25 13:12 UTC] No.45102683[source]▶
The train of thought is “what is everyone using? I’ll use that too”
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motorest ◴[02 Sep 25 14:29 UTC] No.45103593[source]▶
> The train of thought is “what is everyone using? I’ll use that too”

I'm not so sure about that. We're seeing Next.js being pushed as the successor of create-react-app even in react.dev[1], which as a premise is kind of stupid. There is something wrong definitely going on.

[1] https://react.dev/learn/creating-a-react-app

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whstl ◴[02 Sep 25 14:36 UTC] No.45103689[source]▶
It was interesting handling frontend interviews recently.

We do a 30-min tops exercise where you create a React project to show how to use useState and useEffect, etc. I help with whatever command they want to use and allow Google/ChatGPT.

More than half of the candidates had no idea how to use React without Next.js, and some argued it was impossible, even after I told them the opposite.

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fragmede ◴[02 Sep 25 15:27 UTC] No.45104339[source]▶
What are you really testing for? That sounds like a bad interview.
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1. recursive ◴[02 Sep 25 16:05 UTC] No.45104931[source]▶
Basic react experience presumably. As a first approximation, it seems like every possible interview sounds like a bad interview to someone. What has worked well for you?
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2. fragmede ◴[02 Sep 25 16:15 UTC] No.45105078[source]▶
Seems more like a test on random React minutiae. Like, let's take some framework, take away some random piece. How well do you know the area around that random piece we just removed? Frameworks are large and gnarly (or there isn't enough to them). Expecting a candidate to be lucky and know random implementation details in the area that happened to be picked doesn't seem like you'd select for anything other than luck.

For me, lately, the interview question is "here's code that ChatGPT generated for (previous interview question as related to the role we're hiring for that we could do)", what's wrong with it? What do now? (ChatGPT may or may not have actually generated the code in question.)

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3. 9rx ◴[02 Sep 25 16:50 UTC] No.45105672[source]▶
> Seems more like a test on random React minutiae.

It is more like test on whether or not you can figure out random React minutiae (with Google/ChatGPT, if needed) when presented with a need. Which isn't a bad approximation for how well you will do at finding any random minutiae as needs present themselves. React-based development doesn't require much original thought — the vast majority of the job really is just figuring out the minutiae of your dependencies to fit your circumstantial need.

For fun, I asked ChatGPT for an answer and it gave a perfectly good one back without hesitation. Even if you had no idea what React was beyond knowing it is a library for developing web components, you should still be able to answer that particular question with ease.

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4. fragmede ◴[02 Sep 25 16:56 UTC] No.45105752{3}[source]▶
I was assuming that particular interview was not open ChatGPT. If all you want to test for is can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, type that into ChatGPT, and then read it to me, yeah, it seems fine.
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5. ◴[02 Sep 25 16:57 UTC] No.45105770{4}[source]▶
6. 9rx ◴[02 Sep 25 16:58 UTC] No.45105786{4}[source]▶
Why would one random part of the interview disallow ChatGPT when it is otherwise accepted for answering other random React minutiae?
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7. fragmede ◴[02 Sep 25 17:04 UTC] No.45105869{5}[source]▶
Because humans have to interact with other humans in conversations, and if you can't read social cues as to when something is and isn't acceptable, you're boned. I have trouble with that, so it's not surprising to me when others do as well.

When you're in a work meeting, do you just put ChatGPT up on one laptop and Claude on another and just sit back for 30 minutes to an hour?

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8. 9rx ◴[02 Sep 25 17:16 UTC] No.45106044{6}[source]▶
It was deemed acceptable to use ChatGPT to discover the minutiae of useState and useEffect. What is special about createRoot that makes it off limits?
9. whstl ◴[02 Sep 25 22:55 UTC] No.45110179[source]▶
The most basic React functionality isn't "React minutiae".
10. chipsrafferty ◴[03 Sep 25 06:20 UTC] No.45112760[source]▶
It's not React "minutiae". It's incredibly basic concepts, that if you don't know, you cannot in good faith say you know react.

It's like not knowing how to write a for loop or how to access an object's property in JavaScript.

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11. seattle_spring ◴[03 Sep 25 16:08 UTC] No.45117403{3}[source]▶
I remember one of the first technical interviews I conducted about 15 years ago, I asked the candidate the difference between == and ===. She had the same answer as gp, claiming the doesn't "memorize minutiae like that."