[raphaelcosta]

Doesn’t make any sense for me why we are now using React in the backend, to render HTML… Let’s go back to 10 years ago.

[tmpX7dMeXU]

Having a templating system in ‘that environment’ is worth its weight in gold IMO. I’ve been switching between Svelte and Django templates a lot lately, and Svelte just…knowing about the DOM, makes the experience so much nicer. I haven’t come across a non-JS template system that does this. And yes, I was there for PHP and jQuery and whatever.

[raverbashing]

I have to agree, Django templating (last I saw) was stuck somewhere in Web 1.0

Jinja2 is better, but most of the time, I would just build the API and not bother with rendering anything on Django itself

[raphaelcosta]

It's just another template engine, we can do the same (components like templates) in any language for years.

Ruby example that Github is using: https://viewcomponent.org/ https://viewcomponent.org/viewcomponents-at-github.html

[mattmanser]

We've had templating systems on the server-side for many decades?

Do you mean having a javascript templating system maybe? Not really worth it's weight in gold.

[ttfkam]

I was using ASP with JScript on Microsoft IIS servers back in 1999. So yeah, many decades. :)

[ojkelly]

Reacts programming model appeals to people, and react is good at problems that have a predictable output like HTML.

Plus if your frontend is react, it’s much easier to keep all the html generation in one place.

[ttfkam]

A combination of the devil you know and Stockholm Syndrome.

It was better in many ways than the dominant techniques in 2013, sure, but that's not a terribly high bar, especially when observing the React model a decade later.

React served well enough for quick starts. It proved… challenging… for ongoing maintenance and quality control in long-lived projects.

[jalapenos]

Because 25yo "senior" devs with egos to support needed old tech to disparage to that end and PHP was it.

[DustinBrett]

Because Vercel wants to host your backend and they have their hands in React

[satvikpendem]

Because it's nicer than most other templating systems, and when you want to add interactivity, it's nice to have everything in one language and paradigm. Plus, static typing support.

[mhd]

I recently read about a "page-based routing" library for… PHP.

[zanellato19]

It really doesn't make sense.