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Discussion on: How React isn't reactive, and why you shouldn't care

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ryansolid profile image
Ryan Carniato • Edited

For what? My point is that Svelte claim for Truly Reactivity vs React is basically a wash. Either they are both reactive or neither of them are by all but the narrowest (invented) criterion. So differentiating on that is mostly pointless outside of Svelte pointing out that they have built their primitives into the language instead of using an API.

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Ryein Goddard

It just looks good. I like the simplicity. I always thought React was overly complicated and turns out I was right. Some projects start out with the best intentions, but it is easy to recognize a superior solution. I think one sad thing in web development is the stack is constantly changing. It is hard to really get a grasp on everything. That is probably the main reason people don't want to invest in Svelte as they already learned React which was a chore. At least that is how I would feel.

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Ryan Carniato • Edited

Right but is the simplicity is any more real? Keep this in mind from someone who understand in depth how both the frameworks work (enough so that I could write an approximation of either from scratch). Once you peel back the layers not actually that different.

This works in Svelte's favor from an adoption side as since people are just starting to understand it is just as capable as React because I think people were hesitant not only because they are done learning, but because there was this preconception that it was somehow limited. Svelte is not limited in any sort of absolute way. Some problems require explicit not automatic solutions (like using Svelte stores). This fills the gap. Once you go there you can view Svelte's language feature more of an easy onboarding tool. It's a progressive learning thing. Once you get deep into it the biggest DX advantage of Svelte I feel is that the update model isn't convoluted, not some sort of perceived syntax benefit.

But obviously I have a bias I wrote Solid on the philosophy that React has it right by showing it's primitives and giving real control to the developer. Acknowledging the limits of compiled frameworks and taking no concessions from either side of the argument only the absolute power and performance. And I work on Marko pushing the limits of what a compiled framework can do. The choices Svelte has made are only too real.

Svelte does do somethings better than React and I actually think that it is really good at a lot of things people don't realize because of the pre-occupation with syntax. But most complexity in React is local scoped, and architecturally Svelte isn't really avoiding the complicated problems in any new way. Which is fine. I think what we are mostly seeing currently is that the size and scale of the average Svelte project is a lot smaller and we aren't hitting the same sort of problems yet. Then the solutions will come and the tradeoffs recognized.

React gets a bit of a bad rap at times, but the problems that come about in large/complicated systems go beyond the ability of any out of the box solution that comes with most minimal frameworks. These always need special consideration, and for now this almost blissfully naive ignorance will help Svelte gain the popularity it needs to get the support to attack these sort of problems. It takes time and the work of tons of people to get a framework ecosystem to where React is and Svelte has shown it is on the fast track. It is only a matter of time.