[baggy_trough]

> Building a web application with a UI in a professional context without a frontend build is borderline malpractice.

This is outdated nonsense for most sites.

[flimsypremise]

What does "most sites" even mean? I do this professionally, and I assume that most of the people replying here do as well. The article we're discussing is written by a professional for an audience of professionals. The number of sites I've had to build that were entirely static with no interactivity I can count on one hand.

[baggy_trough]

You don't need a heavy frontend build for interactivity. All you really need nowadays is asset fingerprinting.