Modern webdev without a build step!

Typescript! React*! No compiler!

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Remember the 90s?

First some nostalgia.

• Programming these days is really complicated.
• Everything used to be so much simpler!

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In the 90s, If you went to a cool website ![[Screenshot 2024-08-24 at 1.57.30 PM.png]]

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You could actually read how they did it ![[Screenshot 2024-08-24 at 1.57.14 PM.png]]

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Verses nowadays ![[Screenshot 2024-08-24 at 2.00.34 PM.png]]

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The source is impenetrable ![[Screenshot 2024-08-24 at 11.47.02 AM.png]]

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![[QBasic_Opening_Screen.png]]

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Programming actually sucked in the 90s

But is was way simpler.

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Fast forward to now

Modern programming is actually way better.

• Everyone has computers (if not at their home, at least in their pockets)

• The internet is truly incredible

• Browsers can do so much more (and are frequently up to date!)

• Modern web frameworks (like React!) are actually quite nice.

• Elm-like architectures are awesome!

• Typescript is great!

• Live reloading!

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But it has a lot of downsides

![[Screenshot 2024-08-24 at 11.49.31 AM.png]]

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But it has a lot of downsides

• A "simple" app often has thousands of dependencies
• node_modules is terrible
• Bundlers are awful extremely complicated machines (webpack!)
• The "compile" process is more complex for javascript (a scripting language!) than it is for "compiled" languages these days.
• Need to know so many tools and frameworks just to get off the ground

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Can we have our cake and eat it?

Can we get some of the nice things we remember from the 90s without the drawbacks of modern frameworks?

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Sometimes yes!

• Modern CSS is great
  • Don't need sass!
• Browsers understand modern javascript natively!
  • No compiler needed!
• Modern javascript has tagged template literals
  • Don't need JSX (or the extra compiler support)
• Typescript supports types in JSDoc comments
  • We can even take advantage of typescript without its compiler!
• CDNs/HTTP2
  • Don't need bundlers either!

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Demo

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Advantages

• I don't need npm
• I don't need a bundler
• I don't need node
• I don't need a compiler (not even for typescript)
• I don't even need a .gitignore!
• Minimal dependencies

I just need vscode and a browser.

I bet you in 10 years, I can open this in a browser, and it will still work without modifications.

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Final thoughts

• Should you actually do this?
  • Probably not. I happen to like doing it this way and I have zero schedule pressure. If was building something for someone else I would still use the traditional tools, especially package managers exist for a reason.
• It sounds like you're just replacing all these tool dependencies with VSCode plugins! Aren't you just now just dependent on VSCode?
  • Yes and no: 1: Many of these plugins have analogs in other editors, 2: You don't need any of these plugins to actually edit or run the code. If I send a zip of my code to someone, they can edit it in notepad and run it in a web browser, it might not be the nicest environment, but it would work.
• But what if typescript's version changes!? you're code might break!
  • nope!, the types might break, but the code will still just run like before.