Front-end is now a cesspool of numerous complex layers that try so hard to work with each other, all while only trying to deliver mostly the same kind of experience from 10 years ago or older.
Many big companies and startups blindly jump into the React/Vue/Angular stack, along with other complexities like Vite, Webpack, SSR, Zzzzzzzz... etc, where things are tied so loosely with 100s of dependencies and with a fragile underlying platform such as NPM. The output produced is only very marginally different from what could be achieved by the traditional MVC frameworks like Django/Rails/Phoenix etc. What do we lose here? a breathtaking amount of productivity and time. In addition, all the complex layers brought in place to make React FEs work with the backend such as GraphQL etc, also only increase the number of places you will have to maintain.
With SPA and all the modern snake oil like "serverless", engineers only will have to make changes at several places and implement some extra adapter logic, and spend a lot more time writing crap, than actually getting things out the door. With something as simple as JQuery which still holds its ground today, coupled with helper libraries like HTMX, Stimulus/Turbo, you can replicate 90% of the SPA experience, and ship things insanely fast, and maintain logic and state only on the backend. Your user only cares about seeing new features and existing features being easy to use. They don't give a fuck about whether you're using React or plain JavaScript or JQuery at the end of the day.
> They don't give a fuck about whether you're using React or plain JavaScript or JQuery at the end of the day.
Absolutely! However, I believe users aren't the issue. Hiring managers, HR, etc. absolutely give a fuck about whether you're using React or plain JS.
I have a friend that is a recruiter for a moderately sized company. She said that when they were looking for a frontend developer, if one's resume listed Angular and not React, then your resume was instantly thrown away. Not even a second of consideration was given.
I am not sure how common that is within the industry as a whole, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's quite common. It's shit like this that makes me absolutely hate our industry. I love programming, but I am really beginning to hate doing it for an occupation.
I come from the old school way too. I still publish applications in 2025 with just plain HTML, CSS, JS, and .Net backend. Nothing fancy. However, I am feeling compelled to learn React (against my will) sheerly for job prospects. My users nor my employer would benefit from React, but I've been considering using it sheerly for 'Resume Drive Development.'
Well, let me tell you: jobs and independent/solo projects are very different. Jobs run on the idea of extreme commercialization and some politics. When you're building small products though, 90% of your ideas are engineering-centric. I think this is where the juice lies.
Small companies are great - but in the general job market, when you propose an idea that is not inline with the higher ups in the company, it quickly becomes a matter of ego and hate, even if it is the right idea.