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Ask HN: How does one build large front end apps without a framework like React?

94 points thepianodan | 1 comments | 17 Oct 25 10:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.278s | source

I had a mind-blown-moment when I learnt that Obsidian was built without any frontend JS framework. ( https://forum.obsidian.md/t/what-framework-did-the-developer-use-to-create-obsidian-desktop-application/30724/11 )

The benefits, I can see.

    JS frameworks move really quickly, and when we're working on a large, long-term project, it sucks when big breaking changes are introduced after only a couple of years. Sticking to slow-moving web standards (which are quite mature by now) increases the longevity of a project.

    And the stability also means that more time is spent on delivering features, rather than on fixing compatibility issues.

    There is also the benefit of independence. The project's success is not tied to the framework's success. And it also makes the project more secure, from supply chain attacks and such.

    Because there is no "abstraction layer" of a framework, you also have greater control over your project, and can make performance optimizations at a lower level.

    I feel not using a framework can even make us a better developer. Because we know more of what's going on.
There are benefits to using frameworks too, I'm not here to challenge that.

But this alternative of using none... it seems rarely talked about. I want to learn more about building large (preferably web-based) software projects with few dependencies.

Do you have any suggestions on how to learn more about it? Are there any open source projects you know which are built this way? It needs to be large, complex, app-like, and browser based. I'm more interested in the frontend side.

Thank you!

1. mdhb ◴[17 Oct 25 11:49 UTC] No.45615634[source]▶
As someone who does both a lot of app development and web development I’m always kind of confused about how insanely far behind the majority of the web crowd is on these topics and I largely put it at the feet of React who went off on a wildly different direction and ended up making a huge mess in my opinion that huge numbers of people will swear is somehow a “best practice”.

My advice is to go and learn a proper architecture (MVVM is a great fit in my opinion for MOST things) and then figure out how to implement that with something you enjoy using. My only bit of advice here is that the closer you stick to the underlying web platform the better off you’re going to be so if you want a concrete recommendation something like Lit here gives you all the primitives you need along with great performance, documentation and developer experience.