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by vertis 844 days ago
This article makes incredibly poor arguments to support the title. "destroyed the web" is such a massive stretch - I remember pre-javascript internet and I remember pre-css internet, coded my first HTML page in 1995. Even early JS certainly didn't give us a fraction of the capabilities we have today.

There are many problems with javascript development, just as there are different problems with using other languages. But let's not pretend the web would be better without React or other SPA frameworks.
1 comments
gryzzly 843 days ago
are you using mobile web at all? I mean if you have an iPhone 15 then I guess you are having a good time. But "React" Internet is hostile to users and is damaging to business. Take a read – https://infrequently.org/2024/01/performance-inequality-gap-...
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vertis 842 days ago
Admittedly, I'm not a huge user of mobile web (I'm not an iPhone user either, I'm still using a Pixel 4a).

However, I am absolutely not going to defend extremely heavy javascript content either. There needs to be a balance, and as your linked article mentions it will vary a lot depending on the demographics of the audience.

The original article though was not a good critique of any of that (your linked article is much better).

Even so a lot of work has been done to counter a bunch of the problems with doing everything with React. SSR while not a panacea, goes some distance to solving the problem.

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