Sending My Respect to Next.js (and Vercel)

Today, I did some maintenance work on a Next.js course website (we have tons of them built on Next.js), and I thought to myself:

“Wow, this framework has been around for a long time and continues to evolve. It is certainly not a one-hit-wonder.”

For context, I’m generally more of a purist, opting to use vanilla JavaScript and building on the web platform in most situations. Even so, I wanted to acknowledge my respect for the framework and those who have worked hard to develop and evolve Next.js (and, more broadly, React). It is certainly giving us new ways to think about building web apps.

Next.js wasn’t always the king.

To new folks in the industry: Next.js wasn’t always on top. For instance, I remember when Gatsby was constantly in the news as one of the first significant meta frameworks built on React. It was the first framework to build static sites with JSX on the front and back end. As folks hit limits in the framework and pushed against its edges, it could not come up with solutions and eventually fell out of favor.

Today, Astro is filling that gap of static sites. But if you want a complete application development ecosystem on this paradigm, Next.js is currently it.

Frontend Masters has been teaching Next.js since 2020.

Next.js has been building for years – our first course on Next.js was released back in 2020. Our Node.js teacher, Scott Moss, loved the framework and convinced us to continue releasing course updates as the Next.js evolved. After the framework released App router and server actions, Scott returned to teach v3 of the Intro to Next.js course.

It takes a lot to remain in the hearts of developers for years.

Remaining in the zeitgeist is always impressive to see. And even more-so now, when everyone is focused on where the framework is going to do Next (see what I did there).

Drawing the boundaries thinner between infrastructure, the server, and, ultimately, the client is a daunting task. Even if it’s not the best approach for every problem, it pushes the boundaries of what’s possible through an approach that respects interactivity as a first-class citizen.

Note that when I say Next is not the best approach for everything, that’s more so because of Node.js as a platform. Frontend Masters is built on Go, which we think fits our needs best for our given set of challenges. These ideas of putting interactivity first will eventually make their way into other frameworks and platforms as time passes.

We are excited by the new ideas emerging from the React/Next.js community!

At Frontend Masters, we have built a lot on Next.js: course websites, full-stack projects, and courses. We will continue to release courses on lower levels of the stack and welcome the ideas that Next.js is bringing to our web developer ecosystem!

Whatever happens from here, I wanted to write this little piece to give my respect and ensure folks in the community. We want developers to build the best apps possible and their dream careers. And if that’s increasingly on Next.js, we’ll be here for it, doing our best to teach the framework and everything underneath it (JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Browser APIs, etc).

✌️