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.
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!
And, when a new developer comes in who knows React, they can ramp up fast and even if they don’t, there are plenty of resources instead of asking Bob how something works - if Bob is even still working there.
You can (and they will) build a massive house of cards on top of anything, in reality that new React dev will the take the same amount of time to ramp up, or worse if you're not careful. Learning the extensive collection of libraries in use, how they are glued together, application architecture, entry points, data and state management, build, deployment, asset management, etc is what takes most of that time. Having documentation for APIs can't help you there.