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by nobleach 5 days ago
Recently I had to migrate an old SpringBoot app that had a React front-end to a new cluster. Not wanting to mess with super-old dependencies, I opted to rewrite it on a new version of Java/SpringBoot. When it came to the frontend, I paused. I couldn't come up with a single good reason why this app needed React. I rewrote the frontend in straight HTML with a little bit of JavaScript for DOM manipulation. I literally used `var` instead of `let/const` just to drive the point home... (yes, that was overkill). But you know what I didn't need? A BUILD PROCESS! No npm deps. No vite/rsbuild/etc. It was like I had forgotten we could even DO that.

Don't get me wrong, I actually have enjoyed React over these past 10 years. But, including it blindly is just silly.
1 comments
Natfan 5 days ago
esm.ah let's you include "complicated" JS that isn't usually found in CDNs.

it doesn't work for everything and imo is worse for (p)react due to the lack of native JSX, but it does allow for bringing in stuff that usually takes an `npm install && npm build`

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nobleach 5 days ago
Yeah in this case, I needed to pop up a <dialog /> and take some form info, persist it via POST and then show the result of a "used" card/token. So there just wasn't a lot of need for libraries. I'm from the VERY old school so I do recall the fresh hell of including many deps via script tags (pre-Bower!)
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