> Do you realise that you are talking of a really small minority of what these tools are used for?
I absolutely do realise that; but the author seems to ignore them altogether (which is a bit odd, given his normally commendable spirit of inclusion). Contrast this with Jason Miller's (another Googler, author of Preact) guide to different architecture decisions based on different product requirements [0]:
Can be, but having actually looked at (and worked on!) the YT frontend code base, you should use Angular/React. YT FE seems simple but there is a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes.
But how much of the "stuff" is actually necessary? I think part of the point is that the FE complexity is not inherent to the problem being solved, but a side-effect of having too many engineers and PMs with not enough to do, so new problems need to be invented, thus creating the complexity that then requires something like Angular/React.
While Youtube works okayish, most major FE heavy sites suck. Facebook, Linkedin and almost everything that Google produces (Gmail, Google Cloud console, Firebase console) are some of the slowest, buggiest websites created and would be improved by using less React/Angular.
Sure, Figma and Photoshop are a different breed, but the vast majority of CRUD apps should not be SPAs.
> But how much of the "stuff" is actually necessary?
That's up to the business (product owners) to decide, isn't it? Not up to developers. Take a look at a video page on youtube, and catalog how much interactivity is happening there — the player, which can switch between videos, which need to stay in sync with the description and the comments section; and both need to stay in sync with the suggested videos list on the right. The user can react to a video; or share it; or write a comment; or respond to another commenter. Both the suggested videos list on the right and the comments section need to load new items as the user scrolls down... Plus, if the video happens to be streamed, there is an interactive chat section on the right; and presumably some way to reward the streamer with donations.
All that even before one turns their attention to the youtube studio screen, where the user can upload and edit their videos.
Product requirements is not something that developers have control over. All they can do is adapt their code, say "yes sir", or "I don't know how to do this".
Do you realise that you are talking of a really small minority of what these tools are used for?
Also yt can be done in mostly html and css.