Impressions of React and TypeScript from an Elixir/Elm developer | Korban.net
I was recently on a project where I chose to use React and TypeScript as part of the tech stack because of the existing skillset of my team. I myself managed to avoid both React and TypeScript until this year. So when I finally used them on a real project, I was looking at them as an experienced Elm & Elixir developer, coming from small niche ecosystems into the din of the real world. I think that’s an interesting perspective to share.
On one hand, there is a package available for just about everything. For example, I was able to find a ready-made tool that allowed me to take the OpenAPI spec for backend and generate react-router hooks for use on the frontend. On the other hand, because everyone and their dog is using React, the quality of discussion around it (meaning blog posts, StackOverflow answers and so on) is very low and you have to wade through a lot of noise to get useful answers. In contrast, with Elm and Elixir there’s approximately one forum where all the discussion is happening; you may not find a discussion on a given topic, but if you do, it’s far more likely to involve people who know what they are doing.
Another downside of React’s popularity mixed with it not being a framework is the fact that there are multiple packages for just about anything, including essential tasks, and you are constantly faced with making choices - you need to choose a library for routing, for global state management, for making requests and so on. Often there is no clear winner which makes it more of a headache. In comparison, package ecosystems for more niche languages like Elixir and Elm are much smaller and there is often just one way of doing things (with some exceptions - with Elm, it was like a rite of passage to write your own Dict implementation for some reason).
