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Comment by timeon | Hacker News Reader

> Even if the cost is an extra few milliseconds of render time

These things are adding up. Web would be much more pleasant without React. There are many better options out there.

Maybe it would be, but I would also make a significant bet that the web would be noticeably less sophisticated without React. React is complicated, and builds complicated apps, and has its performance pitfalls, but it is also a driving force for how the web has been able to achieve native-class user experiences. Its the right programming model for building complicated things.

Websites were much more varied and creative in the jQuery era, and even more so in the Flash era that came before. Different interaction paradigms, wild animations, full-screen effects, etc etc. Not necessarily "better", but React didn't really enable anything we couldn't have before - even today when real performance is required you will resort to canvas/webgl, alternative rendering approaches and skipping react's render cycle.

React was never [1] fast [2] - that is one of the biggest misconceptions in frontend development in the last decade.

[2] https://css-tricks.com/radeventlistener-a-tale-of-client-sid...

[1] https://www.zachleat.com/web/react-criticism/

I wrote websites in the jquery era. I wrote web apps back then. Gaming tools, databases, tons of dynamic stuff.

When I used react for the first time I cried with “where has this been all my life? It would have saved me years of work”.

Whenever I see claims like yours I always have hardcore doubts. React may not have “enabled” new things just like ai coding doesn’t “enable” new things … as long as you consider time to be in infinite supply. If you care about getting shit done, there is no comparison.

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