vanilla.js!

At the Boston Future of Web Apps conference I saw a reference to the Vanilla.js website: obviously it's a bit tongue-in-cheek but still, it's in line with some notions that I've talked about on this blog, that there's a tendency to look to a big framework to "build the app for us", and sometimes engineers buy a giant expensive house when really they just needed the awesome bathroom fixtures.

The problem is especially pointed on mobile - that link mostly follows the initial load time various frameworks have in their ToDoMVC rendition. Vanilla JS comes out way ahead, of course.

This definitely has an impact on the future of html5 on mobile, vs a trend to do everything in native apps. (Actually, a counter-argument might be that the battle is already sort of lost on that front, so might as well go with heavier stuff if it makes developer's lives easier.)

I disagree, somewhat, with that links' assertion that "Frameworks are fun to use". I think they are fun to learn to do a "Hello World", but the depth of study needed to be truly proficient and able to debug things has to be put in the balance