noframework

#noframework

This is a set of resources to improve web applications without a framework (React, VueJS, Angular and more to come every year).

A number of resources of this page have already been listed by the Frameworkless movement.

Articles

More people than you may think are advocating not using framework. Among them, developers like you and me but also rockstars like Robert C. Martin (a.k.a. “Uncle Bob”, author of “Clean Code”) and John Papa or Adrian Holovaty (author of the Django framework). In a way you may also count all framework authors who created one because they weren’t satisfied with the existing ones ;)

Motivation

Problems statements:

• Aguinaga, J.: “How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016”, Medium, 2016-10
• Gimeno, A: “The deepest reason why modern JavaScript frameworks exist”, Medium, 2018-03 - Spoiler: it’s state sync.
• Allen, Ian: “The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks”, StackOverflow, 2018-01
• Burford, D.: “Why software developers get into ‘religious wars’”, Medium, 2017-08

Why not use a framework?

• Martin, R. C. (a. k. a. Uncle Bob): “Make the Magic go away”, Clean Code, 2015-08
• Kirejczyk, M.: “Hype Driven Development”, Medium, 2016-11
• Vaccari, Matteo: “No Frameworks, Part 1”, Extreme Enthusiasm, 2017-09 - How NOT using a framework delivered faster.
• Vaccari, Matteo: “No Frameworks, Part 2”, Extreme Enthusiasm, 2017-09 - How NOT using a framework delivered faster.
• Arias Asoumbriz, J.-C.: “Front-end Frameworks: Solutions or Bloated Problems?”, Toptal, 2017-12
• Van Neerven, M.: “The Naked SPA — Part I — Vanilla you Say?”, Medium, 2020-07
• Van Neerven, M.: “The Naked SPA — Part II — A Pragmatic Approach to JavaScript Frameworks”, Medium, 2020-08
• Beau, J.: “Design: #noFramework”, Medium, 2022-02

Why Vanilla is important?

• Darveau, Francois-Xavier P.: “You SHOULD Learn Vanilla JavaScript Before JS Frameworks”, Snipcart, 2022-03

How to

Examples of doing it:

• Sharan, R.: “Making a Single Page App in ye good olde JS (ES6)”, DEV, 2018-10
• Papa, J.: “Vanilla JavaScript and HTML - No frameworks. No libraries. No problem.”, DEV, 2019-10
• Routing
  • Tsonev, K.: “A modern JavaScript router in 100 lines”, 2014-02 - The famous Navigo router.
• Reactivity
  • Strazzullo, F.: “Create a fully Reactive UI Framework with JavaScript Proxies and Virtual DOM”, Medium, 2016-11
• Full apps
  • Soundslice (repo)

Libraries, recipes and toolboxes:

• Hamdaoui, O: noFrameworks.js - template function, event manager, DOM utility functions (including an unnecessary JQuery-like element selector) and router

Presentations videos

• Young, G.: “8 lines of code” - How to organize code so that we don’t need most of the magic provided by frameworks: IoC containers or AoP and dynamic proxies, 2013-06
• Moore, D.: “NoFramework”, ThoughtWorks, 2013-12 - Meetup
• Holovaty, A. “A framework author’s case against frameworks”, dotJS, 2017-12
• Vaccari, M.: “Going Frameworkless in the Backend”, Codemotion Milan, 2018

Books

• Strazzullo, F.: “Frameworkless Front-End Development: Do You Control Your Dependencies Or Are They Controlling You?”, APress, 2019-08

Standard solutions

Web components

• Hawkins, T: “Web Component Solutions: A Comparison”, Medium, 2020-07

Companies

Consulting

• Cantilever’s Vanilla JS approach