[tomduncalf]

This is the impression I get, but I've not got any Vue experience to back it up so it's literally just based on first impressions.

I completely agree that React can feel like overkill for simple stuff, but really shines as the apps get more complex - complexity feels a lot more manageable.

For example, I built this in-browser Illustrator-inspired site/app using React and couldn't have imagined doing it without (in terms of making managing state and reasoning about things easy as the app grows more complex): http://f37foundry.com (the type tester on the desktop homepage, apologies for limited browser support!). Curious if you could do that sort of complex app with Vue.

[majewsky]

> please visit this site using some recent version of [browser that sends all your data to Google]

slowclap

If using a JS framework means you don't have time to test your website in more than one browser, I'll happily continue writing plain JS (or better yet, no JS).

[tomduncalf]

It's just the type tester element which is not accessible with browsers other than Safari or Chrome, because there's quite a lot of CSS trickery/hacks to make it work which didn't work in Firefox.

As mentioned in my other comment, due to the target audience it was decided that it wasn't worth the investment to get it working on other browsers right now, but the rest of the site should still work.

Not React's fault, just a lack of time/budget and a lack of native browser support for advanced typography.

[kakarot]

False dichotomy. OP could have tested for FF if he wanted to, irrespective of the framework he has chosen.

Personally, I develop Firefox-first and then work on compatibility for lesser browsers like Chrome and Safari.

Of course things have been complicated a bit now that Firefox Focus is out and uses Webkit...

[inthewoods]

What is complex about the site?

[ballenf]

I didn't think it was complex until I clicked on Jagger on the first page. It gave no indication of being editable, or I just missed the clues.

Once you do click it, I'd say the complexity of the site becomes more clear.

Or maybe my reference point for "complexity" is just low.

Regardless, very cool site. Nice work!

[tomduncalf]

Ah yes, I was referring to the type tester specifically :) Thanks, was a lot of work but a good fun project!

[tomduncalf]

Managing the state and rendering of all the text items as the user manipulates them (this is on the desktop "type tester" homepage, not mobile) - essentially trying to build a "desktop-class" (to some degree!) experience à la Adobe Illustrator.

The rest of the site is pretty basic granted. Maybe it's not a great example, but it's the sort of thing that could have easily become unmaintainable in the old days as features were added quickly, but React and the component model (and MobX) made it much more manageable even as I hacked things in last minute ;)

[Tade0]

There's a plugin for Vue named Vuex which serves as a single state store just like Redux. It's simple to use and makes things a lot more manageable.

[tomduncalf]

Cheers, I intend to try it out. Curious to see how their React Native equivalent works, huge selling point for React IMO but I should try the alternatives!

[amirouche]

what seems overkill in reactjs?

[tomduncalf]

I mean for the simple use cases like adding some validation to a form or a simple widget on a site. But in my experience, these projects usually grow to the point where you are glad you went with React. Personally I'm a huge fan and build things with it I couldn't have imagined doing a few years ago, so I hope all this patent stuff gets resolved/blows over.

[kuschku]

I’m curious, how did you manage to build a website that claims to work in Chrome, but not in Chromium? In Safari, but not in Firefox?

And worst of all, it actually obviously works in Chromium and Firefox, but you just check the UA.

Works:

    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/60.0.3112.90 Safari/537.36

Doesn’t work:

    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu Chromium/60.0.3112.90 Chrome/60.0.3112.90 Safari/537.36

I mean, sure, if you want to build a site that relies on ridiculous UA testing, and breaks everywhere, sure.

But not even in the "works best in Netscape" era did people actually intentionally break their pages in browsers where it actually worked. This is a new low. This is completely ridiculous.

Proof: http://i.imgur.com/YlPE77b.jpg Oh, and as you can see, if I spoof the UA in FF; it actually works fine. This is completely bullshit, and I’m sure I’ll never do business with you. This is completely ridiculous, leaving out major browsers (and, for example, over 40% of the desktop browsing market in Germany) intentionally and unnecessarily.

[tomduncalf]

Ultimately this was a client project with a fixed budget and timeline so a decision had to be made between extending browser support and adding more features.

Given the target audience (graphic designers, the vast majority of whom are on Mac and will use Safari or Chrome, as I validated from stats on other sites I've built), the decision was made to focus work on the type tester on those browsers.

The rest of the site should still be accessible with any browser, but we decided it was better to not show the type tester at all than have a broken experience (which was the situation with Firefox).

Anyway, hopefully that justifies it somewhat - I think it was the right decision all things factored in. There's a lot of CSS trickery/hackery to make the type tester work (native support for advanced typography stuff is poor) so making it x-browser wasn't easy. The messaging to users of other browsers could probably be improved though :)

[kuschku]

> Anyway, hopefully that justifies it somewhat - I think it was the right decision all things factored in. There's a lot of CSS trickery/hackery to make the type tester work (native support for advanced typography stuff is poor) so making it x-browser wasn't easy. The messaging to users of other browsers could probably be improved though :)

It doesn’t even work on Chromium, in the same version as Chrome. There is literally no excuse for that, it’s literally the same browser engine.

On top of that, even back in the "best viewed on netscape navigator 4.0" era there was a solution for this: Show a message that it was only tested with browser X, and that your client was too cheap to pay for anything else, but at least allow the user to bypass that.

As said, the excuses convinced me even more to never do business with you.

[dwaltrip]

Go grind your axe somewhere else... Why would you go off on some random person on the internet when obviously didn't have the relevant context?

Moreover, you failed to acknowledge the points they made in response!

[kuschku]

This is behaviour that's harmful to the web as a whole.

The loop of "everyone only uses chrome" → "I only need to support chrome with my website" → "nothing works on firefox, I'll switch ti Chrome" is harmful to the entire internet industry, and the startuo economy.

It is harmful to all of us, and hurts all of our future.

[dwaltrip]

I agree with with you that this is an important issue. However, your aggressive comments that ignore what the other person said may not be helping.

[tomduncalf]

Good point about Chromium, I'll change that - it wasn't deliberately excluded. But disagree about the messaging, in this case it was more important to the client that the feature worked as smoothly as possible than that everyone could see it. In some cases I'd disagree, but given the narrow target demographic (and their browser choices) here, I think it was a reasonable choice.