Great article. The move back to more web standard-focused work has been a joy. I just used the <dialog> element, awesome. Vanilla JavaScript has improved with new APIs. WebComponents are nice, though they are more focused on creating elements on the fly.
With all this there has been an increasing appreciation of static pages - a large share of the web simply does not need backend logic at all. This makes development and deployment trivial, with superb ux performance.
React is an impressive piece of technology, and has its use cases, but as the article states “do not throw away the baby with the bath water.”
The only constant is movement.
Excellent article.
Great read! I’m mainly a React developer and I can confirm that I have never heard about the <dialog> tag before! Damn, I even use that shadCN Dialog mentioned in the article lol
The good news: we’re learning. The industry is rediscovering the platform.
They mention examples of such frameworks and technologies; listing them and adding hyperlinks: HTMX, Qwik, Astro, Remix, SvelteKit
I’ve known HTMLX, which I wanted to make use of and try out for a while now. Remix looks interesting [to me] too.
Svelte and SvelteKit are amazing ( i say from a backend dev perspective). I’ve been saying much of what the article says since 2016, including that the majority of sites have absolutely no business being anything other than a static site. And that’s how I’ve always built mine. SvelteKit feels like building a static site without the compromises.
A very good (historic) overview and assessment.
