You Really Don't Need All That JavaScript I Promise
summary
Argues that a JavaScript-first workflow is often unnecessary: a plain HTML page with server-side rendering can be faster — Zach Leatherman’s 27,000 tweets as 8.5MB HTML beats a client‑rendered React example by ~200ms — and Remy Sharp finds SSR syntax highlighting sends 10KB less. Shows concrete platform APIs: document.createDocumentTransition and transition.start produce shared element transitions and default fades controlled by CSS, currently in Chrome Dev and progressive enhancement compatible, so fewer JS frameworks are required.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Web core technologies
- 1:45JavaScript performance cost
- 5:16Outsourcing to devices fails
- 8:09Why JavaScript often doesn’t run as expected
- 12:25Tooling change fatigue
- 16:19Complex modern web dev
- 20:11Myth of page loads
- 23:21Shared element transitions demo
- 32:50Frameworks like React
- 33:52HTML and CSS capabilities you might not know
- 37:03JavaScript as a tool
- 38:50Why standards matter
- 40:17Web’s future thoughts
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