How viable is it to use VanillaJS in 2024?
How viable is it to use VanillaJS in 2024?
I'm a full-stack developer, looking for an internship at the moment. I feel like I'm really tired of React and Svelte. I am so done with how there's a lot of moving parts and complexity introduced by various tools, like ESLint, Prettier, TypeScript, and Tailwind. Can I work on a back-end application of my choice, while also having the freedom to not use a JavaScript runtime, in a professional environment? Can I also do modern JS stuff like tree-shaking, minification and code-splitting? How viable would be it to do so? And would it be easier to maintain?
The largest problems that arise from vanilla JS is that you'll find yourself either creating solutions that don't expand gracefully with scope creep, or creating generic enough solutions that you're just reinventing react or other frameworks. Aside from the DOM parts, another important aspect of them is that they offer solutions to managing state in a consistent manner. I wouldn't recommend a vanilla solution for anything you expect to work on for a long time or with a team.
ESlint, prettier, and typescript are similarly helpful for longevity. The set up cost is far smaller than a codebase that has preventable mistakes slipping through.
I hardly ever use JS, even though I’ve written several websites. The fact that people default to JS when most websites can be simple static html/css sites is one of the big problems with today’s internet in my opinion. You don’t need to do tree shaking, minification, etc when you only have 5 lines of JS in order to make a button send a form or whatever. CSS can also do insane amounts of things that you needed JS to do in the past. Even pop up menus and stuff is now built in.