[devwastaken]

They are, look at the context of what they're saying. JS is simply a programming language in a VM like plenty of others, there's nothing inherently bad about it. But every thread here's the uneducated hate for it, completely misunderstanding that html/css static pages don't solve the problems a programming language does.

I'd like to see these people make applications in pure XML. No programming.

[Trasmatta]

No, the argument has never been "replace all JS with static HTML/CSS". The argument is "JavaScript frontends are becoming unnecessarily bloated, slow, and complicated, and we can do better". Solutions like the one Basecamp is proposing with Hotwire include pushing as much rendering logic as possible to the server, where you're using a language like Ruby for logic. Nobody thinks you can just remove all logic from a web application unless it's literally just static content.

And even with Hotwire, you're not getting rid of JavaScript entirely. You can write it with Stimulus. The idea is just that frontend web development has become a mess, and it's possible to simplify things.

> there's nothing inherently bad about it

Disagree.

[qudat]

“Bloated.” This is actually the opposite. Go into a language like python and install numpy (30mb) and then come back to complain to me about a 2mb js bundle.

This argument is so bogus if you look at alternative language dependency sizes.

[spentu]

While there are issues within Python side, I think it is quite unfair to use numpy as an example.

My reasoning is that the numpy project is meant for scientific and prototyping purposes, but many times people are using it as an shortcut and include the whole thing into their project.

That being said, the quality in these packages does vary depending on who developed them. But I think this is a problem that exists with all languages where publishing packages is relatively straightforward.

[minitech]

numpy doesn’t get sent to the client if you use it on the server.

> JavaScript frontends are becoming unnecessarily bloated

[deergomoo]

People often conflate use with abuse.

The bad experiences stick out to people, whereas all the well behaved JS-heavy apps out there likely don't even register as such to most people.

Even with SPAs, it's very possible (and really not that hard) to make them behave well. Logically, even a large SPA should use less overall data than a comparable server-rendered app over time. A JS bundle is a bigger initial hit but will be cached, leaving only the data and any chunks you don't have cached yet to come over the wire as you navigate around. A server-rendered app needs to transmit the entire HTML document on every single page load.

Of course, when you see things like the newer React-based reddit, which chugs on any hardware I have to throw at it, I can sort of see where people's complaints come from.