[ttty]

I'm building a simple page. Ok let's do simple html. Now I need popup for email capture, ok add a bit of hacky js. Now add a menu, could potentially be done with css only.

Now add responsive images. Good luck. You need to process then on server side, then handle them on client side etc...

Now add some customer area...

Add a few more features and it becomes complex.

Why would you want to now throw away all this and rewrite in react when you could just start with react.

In addition I can even migrate my old app to the new one and sometimes I can just copy paste certain components and css styles (thanks to css in Js) and it just works.

Honestly I don’t want to write responsive images manually. I just wrote a system once, now any app reuses the same thing. Same for other stuff. Plus I only need to know react and I can build anything.

You telling me now to learn htmlx syntax and use it sometimes, then use react other times just because… it’s simpler. The benefit is minimal, but now I need to know 2 worlds: react and htmlx.

[atoav]

Not meant as a criticism, but if this is the way you build websites, you are doing it wrong. If you are building a website in a way where you can not anticipate beforehand what will be needed a few steps later because you skip the one most essential step — the planning phase — you are gonna have a bad time.

Of course customers change their mind constantly, which is why you anticipate this in you choice of architecture to leave some wiggle room. The scenario you described tho: I never even remotely had a situation where it bit me in the arse that I wrote HTML with JS sprinkled in. For more complex stuff I have flask, django, websockets, htmx, custom REST-APIs I can built in any other language interacting with custom JS on that webpage (most of the software I write is server side). Or I could just take something like Grav CMS and write a custom Theme and some plugins for it. What is a good starting point depends on the kind of website.

There is so many ways to skin the cat it is not even funny. And if you don't know what cat it is beforehand it is your fault for not asking.