What's the best javascript framework?

[motz]

Hey!

I am currently searching for a nice javascript framework/library to work with on a rather simple website.

The website will only have a single site, so I don't really need too complicated stuff.

I was already looking at vue.js and react.js, but I thought getting some other opinions on the topic would be nice.

If you already used one of the above mentioned, what were your experiences like? I'd love to know!

 

Have a great day,

motz

[Eigenvektor]

Do you even need (a) Javascript (framework) for a simple site though?

 

Personally I've worked with Angular and liked it, but I'm not really a web developers. Despite that I could get going pretty quickly. But I'm not sure it is the right choice for a small one page site. Unless you're talking about a single page application?

[duncannah]

I use React and I like it quite a lot. Haven't had any experience with others though.

But depending on the type and size of the project, it might be better for you to avoid frameworks. 

[samuelhnrq]

If it is simple react is the to-go option, no downsides, handles infinite complexity if you might need it in the future, and (this is the kicker for your case) can be super simple if you need to (I recommend parcel over CRA). Or if you feeling hipster or adventurous why not take a look at preact, seems real nice, better, newer, smaller and more efficient than react, just be careful it's not as, stable, established or ginormous ecosystem like react has.

 

Only thing if you are really finnicky or nit picking might be JSX, which can get kind of ugly and/or magical (nothing a little bit of good practices and prettier can't handle IMHO) 

[JacobFW]

Would recommend sticking with native javascript, but I will admit that it's somewhat dependent on exactly how "simple" your "simple" website actually is.

 

One thing to bear in mind though is that if later on down the line you decide that some upgrades are needed to your code that turns your "simple" site to a much more complicated one which would be better written in a js framework, this may involve a complete rewrite of your existing simple site.  To be fair though, that might actually be better for you in the long term.  I've had plenty of projects that started out simple, then later on required additional features, and while trying to figure out how to modify my existing code I'll have a realization and go

"Damn, if only i had done ______ when I originally wrote this, it would make these modifications much easier and give me a lot more flexibility in the future if any additional changes are needed."

Then inevitably the question becomes, should I rewrite the existing code, or try to force fit a solution into it?  And I've had too many occasions where I chose the second option (or had to deal with someone else who chose the second option) and depleted regretted it later on, because once you have to revisit code to add upgrades to it, I can guaran-damn-tee you that you will have to do it again, and again, and again.  And if your code isn't setup to better suit the more complicated structure, you'll just cheap polishing that turd over and over with each new change, and each new change becomes harder to write, and harder to debug.

 

So no, I don't think that starting off with regular js and then later on rewriting it for a framework is a bad thing, and in fact might just save your mental health.

 

 

[samuelhnrq]

OFFTOPIC: There is also this marvelous meme http://vanilla-js.com/ as well, let us not forget 

[vorticalbox]

At work we use angular however it does a few things that I really dislike such as empty values from a from get sent as empty strings rather than null or undifined super annoying as a back end dev

[Jenoyjo]

there are 2 stacks which are leading

MERN and MEAN, React and Angular (Mongo Express React Node, Mongo Express Angular Node)

Angular is for BIG sites, perfect for building a CRM imo, 

React is easy and intuitive, 

if you are looking only to make websites or mash together with PHP , i suggest to check out Laravel in PHP, it is amazing.