my favourite javascript framework is javascript

Sometimes to say that you “wrote” a piece of code feels wrong, it can feel more like you discovered it. Or re-discovered it anyhow, because it probably exists in many other places in slight variations.

function h (tag, attrs = {}, children = []) {
  const el = document.createElement(tag)

  for (const attr in attrs) {
    if (attr.startsWith('on')) {
      el[attr] = e => attrs[attr](el, e)
    } else {
      el.setAttribute(attr, attrs[attr])
    }
  }

  for (const child of children) {
    if (typeof child === 'string') {
      el.appendChild(document.createTextNode(child))
    } else {
      el.appendChild(child)
    }
  }

  return el
}

Which I wrote while updating alexandria as,

• I wrote the original in 2014;
• it used jQuery;
• it used jQuery plugins;
• sometimes I can’t be bothered deciding on which framework to use / which will age best.

It captures what I like about Elm, but in a slightly uglier way.

h('input', {
  class: 'title',
  value: data.title,
  onblur: me => this.setTitle(me.value),
  onkeypress: (me, e) => {
    if (e.keyCode === 13) me.blur()
  }
})

Of course I’m not saying anyone should go out and use this as the core idea of their applications, especially if writing as part of a team. Using something with a bit more structure is obviously needed to prevent large apps becoming soup; this is a 300ish line app that essentially draws a <table>. And I’m pretty sure rebuilding rows when filtering or sorting isn’t the most efficient way of programming against the DOM, though I doubt it is too bad for the size of table I have.

What I’m trying to say is, with all of us only using frameworks we can sometimes forget how nice plain ol’ JavaScript is in the year 2019.