---
title: Why I won't touch React
date:  2025-03-04
tags:  programming
tldr:  Outside of my $DAYJOB
---

JavaScript frameworks are a dime a dozen and everyone has their favorites. HTMX,
Solid, Svelte/SvelteKit (my favorite), Next, Remix, &c. The industry has long
decided on the framework to rule them all, React. Which is fine, I guess. Cool.

My problem is when the industry decides on A Thing™, everyone gravitates to this
and opposing that can sometimes be difficult.

Remember "mobile‑first design/development"? This never made sense to me. We
don't code on mobile devices, we code on desktop devices…so why not _start_
coding for desktop and use media queries to to hide/remove elements from mobile
views? Being a lowly entry‑level dev meant I had no power to push back so it was
during this era that I decided to apply common sense (to me) coding practices to
personal projects.

The industry has since moved on and replaced that practice with proper
responsive design.

My reasons for being anti‑React isn't a knee‑jerk reaction to being a "hipster"
(anti whatever's popular), I actually have a few reasons:

1. My mental model doesn't mesh with how React works
2. The way React manages state has always been weird
3. The internet is rife with outdated/opinionated tutorials

Keep in mind that I am not up‑to‑date on how React is nowadays so maybe my
issues with it are expired.

I'll contrast the reasons I don't like React with the reasons I like Svelte:

1. Svelte is the closest to writing vanilla HTML/CSS/JS that I've found…and I
can easily use Sass and TypeScript instead.
2. Until Svelte 5, managing state in Svelte has been easier for me to grok than
React. Svelte 5 is quite helpful in their typings when you try to mix the old
way of managing state with their new way.
3. I've never been confused with Svelte tutorials. It may help that Svelte
hasn't had many drastic changes over the years and, being a smaller framework
means there's no SEO stuffing or whatever it is people do to get more clicks on
their ad‑riddled site.

The last point is rectified these days by a good search engine. Google hasn't
been good for quite some time but most people don't care so my last point still
stands. Paying for Kagi makes sense for *me* though.

I will say that React makes sense to use if you have need for React Native. From
what I understand, React Native is fantastic and comes with less headaches than
using literally anything else for building Android and Apple mobile apps from
the same codebase.

Every "Who's Hiring" thread on HackerNews is littered with React experience of
at least a few years. Sometimes a poster will append, "or relevant experience"
but let's be real, experience in another framework probably doesn't matter. Job
postings on LinkedIn are the same but I'd wager HN is better because at least
you can contact a real person to inquire further.

This isn't a bitter blog post btw! I'm more than happy to stubbornly wait this
phase out just like I did with "mobile‑first design", "should designers code?"
(designers should absolutely code, it's awesome), and so on. Did you know I was
actually chastised for spending my lunch breaks as a lowly designer turned
developer to read up on design trends? Why is what I'm doing bothering YOU?

Anyhoo, learn React if you gotta (or geniunely want to), I don't care. I'll be
here in 10 years ranting about the next tech industry darling that doesn't make
sense to me.

🕸️