Why You Don’t Always Need a Web Framework
Richard MacManus covers Daniel Kehoe’s “Stackless” approach to building websites, which leans entirely on what browsers already support. Kehoe’s method rests on three core web technologies: ES6 modules, which browsers natively import; module CDNs, which let you pull JavaScript modules from third-party content delivery networks; and custom HTML elements, built through Web Components.
With no build process, you still get a fairly powerful setup using only built-in browser features. You can still pull packages off npm, get templating, build with components, and maintain isolation where needed.
MacManus argues that today a stackless workflow means you give up some developer experience — no hot module reloading, JSX, or framework extras — but you gain the ability to jump into a project and start working immediately. You also lose some performance since there’s no tree shaking and you make plenty of network requests, but you widen your hiring pool because more people know core technologies than specific tools.
He imagines a tomorrow where those trade-offs shrink, making today’s frameworks less essential — though he admits we’ll likely always find a way to add more tooling to our work.
