PrimeFaces VS Vaadin

> I use Quasar and Vue. This is my hammer for all nails, no matter the size of the nail.

Vue is great, especially with their Composition API (https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/composition-api-faq.html#why-...) and something like Pinia for state management, without the hassles of something like Redux: https://pinia.vuejs.org/

As for components, I really liked the idea behind PrimeVue/PrimeReact/PrimeNG/PrimeFaces (https://www.primefaces.org/) because I'm not aware of any other attempts of creating components that actually work similarly across different frameworks/libraries and it's really good because your skills carry over pretty well if you ever find yourself exploring a slightly different stack.

For what it's worth, the components also work decently (there's a whole list https://primevue.org/autocomplete/) and look okay (with various themes available, https://primevue.org/theming/), plus you can get examples (https://blocks.primevue.org/). Oh yeah, they also have their CSS utilities (a bit like Tailwind, https://primeflex.org/installation) and icons (https://primevue.org/icons).

I actually look forwards to the day where most of these concerns are less of an artisanal craft but rather a set of boring and well known things that just work well for quickly putting together a CRUD or whatever you need.

That said, I also explored VueRequest for handling network requests a bit more easily (https://www.attojs.org/guide/gettingStarted.html) and VueUse for stuff like LocalStorage (https://vueuse.org/guide/) and while it doesn't feel like I'm building a crappy alternative to Vuex and the complexity is reasonably manageable and the usability present, occasionally it all still feels a bit annoying to deal with - reactivity, ways to shuffle around data that I get from the back end, props, various bugs... so it's not all good, but still less complex than some of the things I've seen with React or Angular.

Visit the changelog for the complete list of changes.

Used this years ago for JSF apps https://www.primefaces.org/ I know they've kept it updated for current angular/react/vue JS front ends, but I've never used those. Might be worth a look.

It might be related to this

PrimeFaces (PrimeFaces official page has implementations for Angular, React and Vue)

> I'd like to hear any strategy one has to deal with that. I have taken up Figma and Sketch so I can meet them "where they are" but still, plenty of disagreements can happen.

One option would be to use a premade design system or a component library/framework that gives you a consistent look and feel, most of those design decisions having a good enough baseline. Then just add a color theme and some branding on top of it and call it a day. It will also increase your development velocity and save you from some pixel pushing.

For an example of this, consider PrimeFaces: https://www.primefaces.org/

They have working components that are good enough (and support multiple themes, if need be), their own icon solution and also a CSS utility library, including stuff like layouts. For most projects it'll be enough to create something that works and looks okay.

> A UI library for React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, whatever... Imagine being able to have a component library that works with any of them (or none of them).

That seems to be a worthy goal, but I don't see that being usable in prod projects, at least not in the near future.

The closest I've seen is something like PrimeFaces, which has components for Angular, React and Vue, which is the majority of projects I've seen out there: https://www.primefaces.org (I've also used the Java JSF variety, it was... sometimes problematic)

If you need something that works the same (or as close as you can get) across multiple front end frameworks/libraries, while still having most of the components you could possibly want, I don't think there are many other options out there.

For example:

- Angular calendar: https://www.primefaces.org/primeng/calendar

- React calendar: https://www.primefaces.org/primereact/calendar/

- Vue calendar: https://www.primefaces.org/primevue/calendar

I liked Prime ( https://www.primefaces.org/ )

But how do we explain the complexity of the current toolset? This is where the Law of the instrument kicks in: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.". Even if JavaScript was born in the web, JavaScript centered frameworks do not fit properly in the web. That is why we have huge bundles of JavaScript, that is why RSC are necessary (things like RSC were already a thing in Vaadin) and that is how JavaScript became the Birmingham screwdriver.

Off-topic but this blog is using https://vaadin.com, that's the first time I am seeing this framework being used!

But there are frameworks like GWT or Vaadin for Java, but none of them really took off afaik, I've never seen a job posting with either of these.

This small tutorial takes 15 minutes from the start to a working demo. We use Picovoice Porcupine Wake Word Engine to enable a Vaadin-based Java web application.

Are you a long-time Java developer using Spring-related tech stack? Vaadin can bring a fresh brief of the air into your daily development routines.

It’s been 7 years since we deployed our first Vaadin app for production. The whole process has been more than interesting. We developed the application according to an analysis (several modules for the agenda in the field of local government) based on a verbal assignment. The customer started testing on our server and after 2 months found only 3 bugs and requested 2 modifications beyond the original brief. Once implemented, we installed it at the customer’s site. The application started for the first time and is still running :-).

> Slightly off topic, but I found JSF the most productive out of any framework.

In my experience, it has been a horrible technology (even when combined with PrimeFaces) for complex functionality.

When you have a page that has a bunch of tabs, which have tables with custom action buttons, row editing, row expansion, as well as composite components, modal dialogs with other tables inside of those, various dropdowns or autocomplete components and so on, it will break in new ways all the time.

Sometimes the wrong row will be selected, even if you give every element a unique ID, sometimes updating a single table row after AJAX will be nigh impossible, other times the back end methods will be called with the wrong parameters, sometimes your composite components will act in weird ways (such as using the button to close a modal dialog doing nothing).

When used on something simple, it's an okay choice, but enterprise codebases that have been developed for years (not even a decade) across multiple versions will rot faster than just having a RESTful API and some separate SPA (that can be thrown out and rewritten altogether, if need be).

Another option in the space is Vaadin which feels okay, but has its own problems: https://vaadin.com/

Of course, my experiences are subjective and my own.

Did you find an excellent custom element that would make sense in your Vaadin Java web application? Maybe that is a web component that you previously published yourself in npmjs.com?