React is now the de facto choice and much less painful than past de facto choices, is my take on why. It has a mature and healthy ecosystem, and its relatively small surface makes it easy to learn and predictable, while declarative GUI in general is low on footguns compared to ye ol two-way data binding.<p>Many of the competitors springing up define themselves in terms of React, either as an improvement or a foil. But if you're just trying to get things done, it's hard to go wrong with it - and in a practical sense, not a "nobody got fired" sense.
IMO a JavaScript revolution is quietly brewing. Today’s frameworks have gotten amazingly complicated and EcmaScript spec is gaining new capabilities at a rapid clip, so some of critical features for modern web dev is built in. This project is a great example of what’s coming <a href="https://www.arrow-js.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.arrow-js.com</a>. I think the right move will become avoiding these large and complicated frameworks unless they’re truly called for.
It’s interesting seeing so many comments about stabilization around React. It’s not <i>wrong</i> per se, but it’s also not reflective of what I see from the FE community elsewhere. I see a ton of interest in newer frameworks like Astro. Solid has been growing at a steady pace. Qwik is gaining steam. Even older frameworks like Angular and Preact are evolving, eg adopting more reactive features. Vue and Svelte are going strong, albeit probably not gaining much <i>new</i> traction. And people are creating new frameworks (whether for education/demonstration or to introduce new ideas) or building new paradigms on existing ones (even on React, be it Preact Signals or Blockdom).<p>I think the reason these aren’t prominent on HN is because the community here is overwhelmingly skeptical of, if not hostile to, new developments and exploration in the FE/JS space… and because the FE/JS community <i>knows that</i> and is likewise reticent to subject itself to that.<p>That said, it <i>is true</i> that React is a formidable incumbent, and that quite a lot of the space has coalesced around it. I don’t think that’s set in stone, I even think there’s at least some churn coming sooner rather than later. But I don’t expect that to make huge waves on HN unless and until it’s well underway.
For a while, it seemed that a new JS framework was coming out every day. There was even a "JavaScript framework of the day" blog, which unfortunately I can't find now. But things really slowed down several years back... I want to say 7 years ago or so. React really does seem to have won, as the other commenters have said. It seems to be the main software taught by coding bootcamps and the like. I suspect that the confusion caused by the Angular 1 -> Angular 2 transition helped React gain the upper hand. There were other JS frameworks floating around that had a considerable number of users (including Ember, Meteor, and Backbone, off the top of my head), but they were nowhere near as popular as React or Angular. (That's my impression, anyway.)<p>Irrespective of the merits of React, it is sad to see the monoculture that has formed around it. I get the same kind of vibes as I did back when Java was everywhere, and comp sci graduates used to have the impression that Java = programming.
Someone should do a GPT analysis of HN submissions to find and catalogue the HN-Meta. The meta being, the general rise and fall of sentiments / curiosities.<p>I've been on here for 15 years and definitely feel phases when it seems like a lull because I am personally not interested in the current hype.<p>Side note: A few months ago, I swear I saw about 150 different databases I had never heard of on here.
tbh i feel like many posts on HN shouldn't make it to the front-page. HN is filled with smart people with tech skills and I have a feeling many of them are gaming the algorithm for self-promotion. Even just getting your friends to upvote something is kind of disingenuous since it bias what should be more objective and we know that people do tend to follow others (social proof.) I don't have a solution. This is symptomatic of quite deep and complex issues. maybe someone will solve this one day.
Been that way for a few years I feel. My entire life was cutting-edge JS for 5 years straight around the trends peak. Now it's been a long time since I've come across another developer with a strong opinion about what framework/package manager/compiler should be used.<p>I think that was all mostly about the, very long overdue, burst of advancements in JS engines that IE was holding back for soooo long. Everyone wanted to make THE library that had the best, most efficient, DOM abstraction possible, while taking advantage of any new speed gains the competing engines would release every week. It was a pretty cool time looking back on it but, the competition in that space has stalled and what's left is good and boring enough to easily get by with on any basic project. It's still not great, but that's just how front-end dev work is.
Yeah and it’s been like that for a while. I’ve been a bit confused by people here thinking that’s still a thing in recent months. Personally I stopped caring several years ago though, so maybe I just subconsciously filter it out
Every JS framework I have ever seen hit the front page of HN was well-justified in its use-case, and contributed something meaningful to the state of the art. There are a few now and there were a few then. There was never a plague, just people who really love bemoaning plagues from positions that would not have interacted with them anyway.
React is mature. The trick is to not get distracted by shiny things. I still think the whole thing is so overblown. There’s a lot of choice, great! That doesn’t mean you can’t pretend there isn’t.
Anecdotally the layoff wave appears to have hit design and front end more than other areas. Additionally it feels like the dev tools market, which fuelled a lot of new frameworks, is slowing down.<p>For the next couple of years problems will not be technical but business and marketing. No programming framework is going to help.
I found a gut bacteria story here just the other day. Hackernews gonna hackernews.<p>But yeah, JS frameworks seem to have run their course. The corporate world appears to have settled on React. The new thing is, look what I did by futzing with AI.
React won.<p>Angular is officially deprecated, and the others are distant also-rans at this point. React Native has also almost completely taken over iOS development. Thank god we can all just agree on a baseline to work from finally.
Similar to Spring in Java, React became de-facto a standard having now a thriving ecosystem and an enormous community. This is actually probably the largest community if you compare it to any other framework or programming language out there.
I wonder what will be the next mindless thing related to AI on which programmers will be wasting their days reinventing the wheel every 3 months. Langchain and such?
JS developers: fairly progressive
HN: fairly conservative<p>JS developers: hey here's an update to a library that's been around for 8 years
HN: Why are there new JS frameworks every day???<p>Also HN: Why aren't people posting about JavaScript here?<p>Edit: I'd fix the formatting but it's not worth it, HN can't bother to interpret a line break, I can't be bothered to accomodate.