Since developing using the .Net platform for over 10 years I decided to switch to the Javascript / Open Source world in 2018.
After learning vanilla Javascript and Node I started looking at frameworks and decided on Vue. I wrote several successful applications and was happy with Vue except that I did not like programming by convention instead of a formal app structure.
I eventually looked at Svelte 3 and was immediately hooked. Everything in Svelte made sense and I liked the idea of the compiler and the abstraction it gave to normal programming problems.
Svelte 3 or 4 lets me write normal looking code. It takes care of complexities like reactive variables, variable change detection, components, slots, two-way binding, scoped or Global CSS, and many other things where the compiler took Svelte syntax and turned it into vanilla Javascript simply by making a change in the source code and immediately seeing the results using the Vite ecosystem.
Life was good and then came Svelte 5 and SvelteKit. Although Svelte 5 supports backward compatibility it is not guaranteed in the future. The documentation recommends changing to the new world of Runes, Hooks, complicated References, folder-based routing with page names like +page, and a list of Deploy Adapters just for building the app.
I have spent a lot of time reading the new documentation and working with the new syntax but I just don’t get it. I loved Svelte because it abstracted away all of the complicated and ugly-looking code of the modern object-oriented world of programming.
I know there are times when things need to get updated, but it seems that the Svelte team missed the idea of using simple syntax and letting the compiler do the work behind the scenes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this so please add your comments!