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I appreciate React and Angular are difficult to get going without some sort of build step (React can do it, but not JSX, so it's not optimal), but Vue has always made it very easy to start right in the browser. AlpineJS[0] is newer on the scene, but it also focusses on doing exactly what Hibiki is trying to do with a much smaller API surface area.

This demo[1] runs a similar template to the initial few in the Hibiki HTML tutorial via Vue. I've been able to use the full Vue templating features and I've used a minimal amount of JS to set it up. The script I've included is ~4x smaller than the minified prod build of Hibiki, and my data models are in a real JS script tag so my code editor will treat it as real JS, as are my event handling methods which interact with my data model. AlpineJS is actually half the size again of Vue's prod build, I just chose Vue as I work with it regularly.

In trying to save developers the trouble of learning JS where they're not familiar, Hibiki feels like a new, less known, less documented DSL wrapped in non-standard HTML tags and lots of esoteric naming conventions in order to connect logic, data and layout together (it gives me ColdFusion vibes). While I could see the idea with remote actions, replicating this kind of loop in JS is trivial and feels less "magic", with the benefit that a strict data structure isn't thrust on the developer that then leaks into their backend code.

If a developer doesn't want to learn JS, they can get by just fine with server rendered pages which need to update with every action. If they want interactive content without reload, it's probably best for them to learn the small amount JS required to do what they want.

I apologise for being so down on the idea, especially as I'm keen to see more projects embrace the approach of keeping it simple, and ridding themselves of painful build steps and huge node_modules folders. But I'm struggling to see the benefits of Hibiki over the incumbent frameworks available.

[0] https://alpinejs.dev [1] https://jsbin.com/mifiwabuqa/edit?html,output



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