[Whitestrake]

Is writing "plain old JS in a text editor" really that rare nowadays?

Honest question - I've only done a few websites, some with basic JS functionality and a few more advanced (for a website, that is) Go apps now - but never really felt the urge or need to reach for the "modern JS scene", so I'm unsure just how prevalent that kind of setup is.

[brucephillips]

It is for modern commercial products, yes.

And while there's some fragmentation and hacks that justify derision, it's not that bad. Any complex software component needs a package manager and a build system.