This has got to be one of the most stupid comments I've read this week. This is a page with random lazy-loaded images splattered all around, the load and render time difference if this used React would be not more than 10 milliseconds.
On the other hand, since the typical (!) React site has no fallbacks whatsoever for noscript, even though a specific HTML tag exists for this very purpose, the React site stays a white page, one can wait an arbitrarily long time and it still won't work or change, and the browser tab gets closed.
I'll avoid getting into the whole discussion about people on slow connections, accessibility, etc., as I get the impression you really don't care about them, and just point out the obvious fact that everyone has JavaScript disabled whilst your JavaScript is downloading.
You'll avoid it, because you don't have any valid arguments.
Slow connections are not a problem, because React is ~40KB and Preact is ~3KB. If downloading 3KB is too much for your network, it's not the fault of React, JavaScript or any web developer that you're gonna miss out. Also, server-rendered HTML would NOT be smaller than 3kB - in fact it would require MUCH more bandwidth since server-rendered HTML can't be cached as easily, so every page will re-transfer the exact same HTML for shared things like navigation bars, footers, etc.!
Accessibility isn't any issue either, this is a ridiculous argument to even try to make, accessibility tools use HTML and are fully aware of the existence of JavaScript - React doesn't magically bypass HTML to display something on the page.
> everyone has JavaScript disabled whilst your JavaScript is downloading
Everyone has HTML disabled whilst your HTML is downloading.
I think the complaint is mainly about the failure mode. I guess it would be trivial to use the noscript tag to display a message saying JavaScript is required, instead of showing a blank page that keeps loading.
And it's somewhat responsive even, has a sticky footer... keeping the best of the past while also staying up to date with modern developments, I think we all can learn from this <3
Thank you, I couldn't find it with google and I was starting to think the internet had forgotten it in its steady decline. Whether that's a symptom or the cause of the decline, I can't be sure. But there's still hope!!