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Comment by matthewmacleod | Hacker News Reader

That’s just total nonsense. React is a tool like any other, and it can be used to build simple UIs or overwrought complex ones.

My team have just reimplemented a UI in React that was previously built using static pages progressively enhanced using JS. And you know what? It’s faster, easier to use, more accessible, looks better, and well-tested (though unfortunately I can’t show it off, because it’s a commercial product).

I would guess you are just conflating bad UI decisions like Reddit’s with the fact that React is now popular for building UIs.

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It's not total nonsense - trends and tools dictate the way you think. It's like with PowerPoint - it's an excellent tool if you know how to speak publicly; if you don't (like most people using it), it makes you create a horror show - to the point people routinely attribute this to PowerPoint itself.

SPAs are basically PowerPoint of web development.

Reddit could have been rebuilt in react and looked exactly the same, and no one would have ever noticed. The problem with the new reddit design isn't react, it's designers.

But we all agree the new site is terrible right? It's especially awful if you don't allow cookies because every page you load you get the "we made a new look!" pop-up.

Yes, the new Reddit design is terrible. Reminds of their app which is also bad.

The new design is bad enough that I have significantly reduced the time I spend on Reddit. Now if they retire the old site, I can kick one social media addiction.

Switch to the 'classic' or 'compact' layout, not the default 'card' layout.

The screaming laptop fan, janky scrolling and slowly loading interface would have tipped me off pretty quickly. Its why I backed the hell out of the reddit beta, its unusable.

React itself does not dictate that you use the SPA paradigm. React + React Router = SPA. React alone can be paired with .NET, PHP, or whatever server rendered framework you want to use for traditional, multi-page apps.

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