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Next.js is infuriating

(blog.meca.sh)
1033 points Bogdanp | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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YuukiRey ◴[] 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 ◴[] 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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motorest ◴[] No.45102115[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

That is my opinion as well. Things like SSR are forced onto users with a very smooth onboarding, but I'm concerned that in practical terms this perceived smoothness can only persist if the likes of us pay the likes of Vercel for hosting our work.

In some degree I feel the whole React ecosystem might have ended up being captured by a corporation. Hopefully it wasn't. Let's see.

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jbreckmckye ◴[] No.45104192[source]
Might have? The official React docs recommend Next.

That capture happened... two years ago? (Perhaps there's a good blog post there, if it doesn't exist already)

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1. Silhouette ◴[] No.45106740[source]
Yes - there's been a very obvious shift in the "official" React positions over the last 2-3 years. It's regrettable that they have moved so sharply away from the simplicity and "doing one thing well" philosophy that made React so successful in the first place. I've used React since those early days and built successful, long-lived projects with it so I'm genuinely sad to see it fall so hard.

Objectively that sadness does not change reality however. At least within my own professional network no-one seems comfortable starting a new project using React today. Almost 100% of the paid front end work I've been involved with myself or discussed with others recently is now using alternatives - most often Vue though I've seen other choices at least seriously considered. I've even had a couple of recruiters I haven't worked with for years suddenly reappear desperately looking for someone to take on React work and openly admit it's because they are struggling to find anyone good who wants to go near it. All of this is a sharp contrast with the market of the early 2020s when React was clearly the preferred front end choice. And all of this is surely a direct response to the push to make React a full stack framework, the added complexity that has introduced, and the apparent capture of official React development by Vercel.