This problem has been solved a thousand times over with much simpler tooling.
> I literally have zero memory of how we used to build forms in the pre-React times.
:(
This is honestly quite a disturbing trend with a lot of front-end developers these days.
I recently asked a front-end dev why they chose React for a simple app over simple server-side templating, he's reaction was "we don't need SEO, so why do we need React SSR", like how does that argument even make sense. They seem to have forgotten you can build stuff without a JS framework.
The default has to be SPA + API, even when you don't actually need it.
I don't really get this argument. What makes "simple server-side templating" better than React components? I'd argue that these React components effectively are templates. If someone is proficient in React, why are we suggesting they have to learn some other random templating language? Not to mention deal with additional things like file organization, transpiling, etc.
What I suspect was the intent of the original question was "why does a simple app need to be an SPA with an API on the backend", which I do feel is something that adds significant complexity to any project. It's sometimes worth it, but I'll never be convinced that having to maintain an API alongside client-side rendering is faster or easier than a traditional server-rendered application.
I agree about learning new things, but this isn’t a new language or syntax. At best you spend 10 minutes at the documentation and you know everything you need to know.
As abstraction on top of abstraction is created, it becomes easier and easier to write software, so naturally there are now more frontend devs who aren't familiar with web dev basics. And if all you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. Similar trends happen for backend devs and in devops. Is that really a problem? Only if you are a company that hired them with different expectations.
That is a disturbing trend.
You have this on the backend and devops side as well, but I would argue that most competent developers there know that there are other solutions.
Maybe my experience is more skewed towards front-end developers, but I would make the same statement about backend devs if they instantly choose one technology over the other, simply because that’s all they know. (Not even because they can defend that technology with reason)
Markdown then gives us a nice way to write content and separates layout and presentation from that content.
Gatsby has loads of plugins and examples so getting started is easy. There's a plugin for an RSS feed.
I'm completely with you that a blog can be HTML and CSS, but I can clone a Gatsby starter blog and add some markdown files within 15 minutes. I see this approach as a low cost alternative to Wordpress.