Ask HN: How would you build a simple, dynamic website in 2024?

2 pointsHammerhead123212y ago2 comments

I’m looking at a new project that will basically contain a search bar and a bunch of content boxes that are dynamically populated with data from a backend based on the search.

Most of my limited frontend experience has been React, and I’ve always been displeased with the extreme amount of crisscrossing dependencies and not really knowing what’s going on behind the mountain of npm modules.

I suspect many would suggest raw JS/HTMl/CSS, but I do enjoy having (limited) “handrails” that are often included with frameworks, plus I imagine raw JS/HTML would become too messy to quickly.

I’m looking for something that will let me build a simple site with dynamic feature that doesn’t have a huge backlog of dependencies and mysterious magic behind the scenes. Does that exist in 2024?

2 comments

nness2y ago

I've never used it, but sounds like you could pair a static-site generator and htmx for your particular use-case.

Alternatively if you want to work with JSON, Vue.js stills runs within the browser without any build dependencies — it's what I use for small utilities or site mocks, just a little weighty as it includes the template parsing engine — but not mandatory.

https://jamstack.org/generators/ https://htmx.org/

ksjskskskkk2y ago

php8 is exactly what you described. avoid anything not in core. no modules. no autoloader etc. and then sprinkle a js frontend which just adds functionality on top of raw html.

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