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Discussion on: The Cost of Consistency in UI Frameworks

 
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Ryan Carniato

I'm not allergic to build steps obviously, and I think they achieve things otherwise basically impossible. That new tooling might hide the complexity but it doesn't change the nature of it.

My concern about complexity is more on SSR/Hydration/Compilation side. It is exceedingly hard to achieve what we want without more advanced compilers. Solid compiles but only JSX, just like React and most historical JS frameworks. There is something nice there from the portability standpoint and that there is a clear division between JavaScript and your DSL. You can pick it up use as much or as little as you want and slice it however you want.

What seems to be coming is that we will need compilation to re-order end user code. This troubles me. Svelte, React Forget, Marko, Qwik.. maybe soon Solid.. I've been trying to see if there is another path without handing the keys over. But where I am right now it looks unlikely. So I'm going to attack it piecewise.

So it isn't about build step existing. But figuring out how we can make sense of the code we write. Is it still JavaScript? Maybe the answer is it shouldn't be and we need all encompassing DSLs but I have to ask the question.

On the positive performance is getting some attention again which is good. But it's 2 sides of the same coin.