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JavaScript in Plain English
javascript.plainenglish.io · Group blog · on HN since 2021
A Medium publication with many contributors writing about JavaScript, React, frameworks, tooling and career advice.
What HN saysCommenters are skeptical of its clickbait-style posts, calling one author's work Medium SEO bait, though a few discuss Solid and React performance.
15HN people shared it
13linked it in comments
4stories submitted
11story points
9 months agolast shared
2021people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Legendary and Highest-Paid Software Engineer From Google1 people · 4 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 2React and Next.js Is Dead – Something New Is (Finally) Replacing It (For Good)1 people · 4 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 311 Visual Studio Code Extensions You Don't Need1 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 4
- 5Javascript is dying and nobody wants to admit it f3d8388d5f821 people · first shared 2025
- 6Heres donald knuth s advice to new programmers it should not be ignored 6963c0aba7aa1 people · first shared 2022
- 7Designing solidjs immutability f1e46fe9f3211 people · first shared 2021
- 8An easy way of accessing elements of a webpage in browser 9ad848dceba11 people · first shared 2022
- 9React is dying and nobody wants to admit it 8210c459abe01 people · first shared 2025
- 10The extensions you use are not a secret especially to linkedin 64a8ef3f5b251 people · first shared 2026
- 11Sometimes you dont need javascript at all 73a6a226a1c31 people · first shared 2023
- 12Php dead and nobody wants to admit it 6337964534e31 people · first shared 2025
- 13Using binance api to get the users trading history e459c643878b1 people · first shared 2021
- 14A millionaire 5m usd developer has changed my money goals 79ee5a454ab11 people · first shared 2022
- 15Goodbye html hello canvas part 1 92f7509616661 people · first shared 2023
What HN people wrote when they linked it
joenot443 · 2022-11-06
I don't think this author is worth much time. Her previous works seem to mostly be Medium SEO bait crap[1][2], I would take this story with a similar amount of seriousness.
https://levelup.gitconnected.com/an-employee-got-fired-because-of-bad-…
"An Employee Got Fired Because of Bad Smells"
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/a-millionaire-5m-usd-developer-has-…
A Millionaire (5M USD+) Developer Has Changed My “Money” goals
polyglotReader · 2022-10-05
A must read for the knuth's fans:
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/heres-donald-knuth-s-advice-to-new-…
ryansolid · 2021-11-30
It's unlikely. Solid has had this performance profile since 2017. React hasn't really budged. Fundamentally different approach. There are different types of performance to explore but raw performance for small things is not something React is going to "catch up" on. Might be worth a read: https://javascript.plainenglish.io/javascript-frameworks-performance-c…
filoeleven · 2021-11-30
I read this article[0] which was written by the framework’s author. It looks like it gets closer to “reagent in plain Javascript,” which is pretty great.
JS development would benefit greatly from a native “immutable, nestable, performant, deep-compare-by-value” data type that supported something like these operations:
atom.get(path)
atom.set(newValue) // returns new atom
atom.set(path, newValue) // returns new atom
By handling this type in the JS engine, you can take advantage of HAMT to make this quite performant[1]. The “single-global-state atom” pattern is a point of convergence, and it would be nice to have native speed instead of relying on one of the many libraries that reach for it, each with their own trade offs. (SolidJS uses proxies for this.)
It should be a language-level abstraction. I suspect it would be rapidly adopted by a lot of frameworks, and we’d all benefit from it.
[0] https://javascript.plainenglish.io/designing-solidjs-immutability-f1e4…
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_array_mapped_trie
shouldnt_be · 2026-02-05
I wrote an article about it a couple of months ago.
I also explain why, how and a way to prevent it.
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/the-extensions-you-use-are-not-a-se…
graypegg · 2023-10-28
This seems like a well done talk, but part of me is tired of the same information repeated again and again in different forms. I feel like I’ve already seen [0] [1] [2] this talk about 15min in. Details tag, input validation attributes, the dialog element etc.
It’s a good message (look at these platform features!) but rarely am I seeing people that are surprised by the existence of the details accordion tag any more.
Comically I guess the <details> tag they’re (and myself is) familiar with is usually wrapped in an Accordion react component with the open close state saved in a hook, so maybe we haven’t learned.
[0] http://youmightnotneedjs.com/
[1] https://www.kryogenix.org/code/dont-need-that-js/
[2] https://javascript.plainenglish.io/sometimes-you-dont-need-javascript-…
AdriaanvRossum · 2022-07-22
You are right [1]. Didn’t know that is the case.
[1] https://javascript.plainenglish.io/closing-a-window-with-javascript-be…
cuttysnark · 2022-03-08
TIL (last week) Chrome DevTools understands $$ as document.querySelector [0] e.g. $$('div[role="img"] img')
[0] https://javascript.plainenglish.io/an-easy-way-of-accessing-elements-o…
bla3 · 2021-09-06
The "how it works" writeup is fun too: https://javascript.plainenglish.io/i-stuffed-tensorflow-js-into-a-reac…
imiric · 2025-04-23
> I would say that the "market" doesn't agree with your thoughts on the matter
I'm well aware. :) But it wouldn't be the first time that large-scale groupthink has led an industry or society in the wrong direction.
The problem is that there is now an entire generation or two of frontend developers who are "senior" based on years of experience who have only known web development post-React. They're not really aware of working with anything other than a framework, what these frameworks and libraries initially set out to solve, whether those same problems still exist today, or what is possible with modern native web technologies. They in turn go on to invent new frameworks and libraries to address some of the shortcomings of what they're used to working with, but without considering the possibility that these massive frameworks might not be needed at all. This is why we need developers with experience in the early days of the web, those with different backgrounds, and those who are willing to rethink the modern approach from first principles, to guide the industry towards saner development environments, and more maintainable and performant projects.
Datastar, for example, takes a radically different approach, and while I can't say whether it's the right one for every project, the results speak for themselves. It powers projects that would be a nightmare to build, if not outright impossible, with any other framework, with incredible performance, all with a tiny fraction of…
BoredPositron · 2025-09-12
This guy literally wrote the same AI generated rage bait article format for every programming language he could think of yesterday.
https://medium.com/codeelevation/python-is-dying-and-nobody-wants-to-a…
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/react-is-dying-and-nobody-wants-to-…
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/php-dead-and-nobody-wants-to-admit-…
https://medium.com/javarevisited/java-is-dying-and-nobody-wants-to-adm…
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/javascript-is-dying-and-nobody-want…
taboca · 2021-06-02
Location: Brazil, Ribeirao Preto. Tax paying from Lisbon in 2022.
Remote: Yes, 10 years experience.
Style: Generalist + specialist. I have acquired skill as a generalist in the past 10 years, although I have a C.S. background from 2000.
Technologies: ReactJS, JavaScript, Redux, NPM, Docker, Electron, HTML5, CSS3, SVG, GAE.
Past: Netscape, Mozilla, Yahoo.
Résumé: http://mgalli.com/
Email: [email protected]
Entrepreneur-founder with technical skills in modern JS technologies. Although I have worked with core engineers, such as the inventor of JavaScript and browser developers; I never worked as a core engineer but always under marketing. Consider myself a JS protyper, UX-UI developer; but one that have a wider view of what happens with servers, client and HTTP networking.
Check this point of view based on writings and what I do. First, examples of front-end with UX and UI work:
* http://vanessaoliveirapsi.psc.br/
* http://mariarita-dermatologista-mrclinica.meplex.com.br/
* http://www.mgalli.com/
Example of server-rendered graphics:
* http://vanessaoliveirapsi.psc.br/about (the HTML template is rendered by a headless browser in the backend)
Back-end for this project? Yes, Docker, NodeJS. But keep in mind that it is an MVP. Therefore, from the procuct perspective, it lives to test hypothesis and not with the goal of scaling.
Now, regarding technical writing and articles:
[Using JavaScript to translate crypto trade records from CSV to JSON | by Marcio S Galli | Geek…