You don't need a frontend framework

Sometimes I feel that web development has gotten pretty complicated. Fairly straightforward applications are split apart with their frontends powered by behemoth frameworks like React, Next, or Nuxt. But, it doesn't have to be that way.

In this video, I show how a basic backend framework (in this case, Laravel) with its templating language, can have full-stack applications built around the engine of hypermedia, the actual HTML in a browser.

It's a strange way of looking at development, but has the potential to remove a lot of headaches, letting the modern standards present in HTML handle the workload, being enhanced at times with a sprinkling of vanilla JavaScript.

The result is an accessible frontend that's fast and scalable, with your data and state built-in. What do you think?

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Some helpful links:
https://htmx.org
https://alpine-ajax.js.org
https://unpoly.com

- 0:00 Intro
- 0:55 An HTML-First Approach
- 2:04 Refactoring Out The Frontend
- 3:52 Seamless New Data
- 6:40 Introducing HTMX
- 11:05 Multi-Step Form with HTMX
- 15:02 Wrapping Up

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