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

94 points thepianodan | 2 comments | 17 Oct 25 10:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.436s | 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. juston1337 ◴[17 Oct 25 16:36 UTC] No.45618731[source]▶
You can, but if you did you would likely just reinvent concepts that are in the framework. Maybe you will do a better job (problem is that many believe they can, and so do).

You could even write your own browser that uses python instead of javascript. However, it would only be compatible with python html pages. We stick with JS for web development because that is how the "browser framework" is designed. HTML, CSS, JS, etc. are all just part of that framework. If you wrote your own browser, you would need to reinvent all that as well.

I do not miss the early browser days, where different browsers could have been seen a different frameworks. Things go allot better when the browser framework standardized. I still suffer from the IE trauma.

Allot of what we see with JS frameworks ought to baked into the browser framework, but that process is uber slow, because people have to a agree, and people do not like to agree. But it is magic when they do.

replies(1): >>45619568 #
2. a4isms ◴[17 Oct 25 17:42 UTC] No.45619568[source]▶
There is a process by which functionality is pushed outward from the core to the edge. And there is another process by which functionality is pushed back from he edge to the core.

For example, people did things in JS over and over and over again and some off those things became browser functionality, and some of them became CSS functionality, and some prompted server and browser changes.

Yes, you are right, the process is slow. But when software has a way for people to customize it, that customization is a very egalitarian kind of feature discovery.