This got to me:
> For a certain type of developer, building things yourself is just more fun
The platform APIs were terrible. React wasn't "more fun"... it just made it possible to do things with the platform that were extremely difficult and cumbersome to get working reliably with platform APIs alone.
To me, web components were an incredible idea poorly implemented. Most of the minimal adoption happened on top of frameworks like Lit that wrapped WCs to try to make the dev experience tolerable.
In urban planning they have a concept called "desire paths" where if you don't put sidewalks and pathways in the right places, people invent their own. I feel like the web community has spent a lot of time and effort patching the platform.
Now credit where credit is due: it has very much improved. And modern standards means it really is time to re-evaluate where and when you need these patches. But don't write off all that annoying and painful effort people put in to trying to making the platform deliver it's promised potential just to "building it yourself is more fun".
I've been involved in successful and unsuccessful platform builds. In the successful ones, I either had absolute authority or I built for the desire paths, even if they weren't the "perfect" ones that I desired. I anchored on the non-negotiables, which I kept to a minimum, and then optimized to get people on board, even if that meant deviating from my perfect vision.
One way to keep myself honest in being on the desire path was to go from win to win (win = someone using platform and being a satisifed "customer") iteratively as part of the full build. It also helps avoid platform fatigue, and ensures that should some priorities change, we've gotten some value out of the effort.
toddmorey · · focus · HN ↗
The platform APIs were terrible. React wasn't "more fun"... it just made it possible to do things with the platform that were extremely difficult and cumbersome to get working reliably with platform APIs alone.
To me, web components were an incredible idea poorly implemented. Most of the minimal adoption happened on top of frameworks like Lit that wrapped WCs to try to make the dev experience tolerable.
In urban planning they have a concept called "desire paths" where if you don't put sidewalks and pathways in the right places, people invent their own. I feel like the web community has spent a lot of time and effort patching the platform.
Now credit where credit is due: it has very much improved. And modern standards means it really is time to re-evaluate where and when you need these patches. But don't write off all that annoying and painful effort people put in to trying to making the platform deliver it's promised potential just to "building it yourself is more fun".
fatnoah · · focus · HN ↗
One way to keep myself honest in being on the desire path was to go from win to win (win = someone using platform and being a satisifed "customer") iteratively as part of the full build. It also helps avoid platform fatigue, and ensures that should some priorities change, we've gotten some value out of the effort.