v1.0 RC – Can it outshine Next.js?

[tipiirai]

This major update introduces a range of improvements while simplifying the system. The documentation has been greatly enhanced, and there's a completely new Markdown parser from the ground up, specifically designed to bring Nue’s content-first vision to life. Check out details:

https://nuejs.org/blog/nue-release-candidate/

[seneca]

Wonderful news. Thank you for all your hard work. I'm looking forward to going over all the docs and checking all the new goodies you have provided.
Nuejs needs a major push in terms of exposing it a wider audience.

[nobkd]

#333 (comment)

[tipiirai]

Thanks guys!

I'm kind of good at marketing up to the point when I need to expose things to people. So quite terrible in fact. Just waiting for it to happen at some point.

[JensRoland]

Loved the article, and the facelift for the homepage as well!

I am a big fan of Nue and a fervent believer in what you are trying to do with it, so take the following in the spirit of friendship:

I was put off by the new branding of Nue as a "Design Engineering" framework.

I am not familiar with the term 'Design Engineering', but the wording plus the visual cues in the header gives an unmistakeable 'Figma dude' vibe...... which - if I didn't know better - could have ended my interest in Nue right then and there.

That scares me, because I want people like me to enter nuejs.org for the first time and feel like they've come home after a long cold frontend winter.

I don't identify as a Figma dude. I'm a software developer and engineering lead with 25 YoE with HTML, CSS and JS. I know my way around UX and CSS, but when it comes to design, I leave that to the professionals who know their way around InVision, Photoshop, and Figma.

The new frontpage to me screams "DO YOU LIKE FIGMA? THEN YOU'LL ♥ NUE!".

Is that who Nue is for? Most of the Figma dudes I have worked with are clueless about HTML and CSS and are constantly looking for the next AI tool to auto-translate their Figma designs to React so they can finally stop having to deal with developers and forget that web technologies exist.

I actually have the utmost respect for designers; designers play a crucial part in web development and their job is highly complex, but they don't typically know a lot about web technologies and I suspect they aren't the core audience for Nue because the main thing they want from HTML and CSS is to never see them again.

I am guessing there is a definition of 'design engineering' out there and that it is a lot less design and a lot more engineering than that. But if people aren't familiar with the term then they will look to the visual cues and subheader for clarification, and here I think the visual cues are betraying Nue a bit.

[tipiirai]

I hear you. I actually though the previous version was screaming Figma too much, and wanted to come closer to engineering and the basics of web. For visual cues, I guess you refer to the selector rectangle around the word Design? I'm happy to correct the tone in there, but still want to keep the word "Design Engineering" because I feel it's very close to what Nue aims to be.

[tipiirai]

Or maybe you're right. "Design Engineering" might not describe the product as well as say "The simple web framework" or "The simple web stack" or even "The standard web stack". Thoughts?

[JensRoland]

All of those sound better to me than the 'design engineering' one. If I had to pick one, maybe "The simple web stack"? It's six and two threes, really.

Coming up with a strong brand identity for a JS/web framework is hard, not least because there are >50 competing frameworks vying for the same users and each one promises roughly the same things: fast, lightweight, productive, progressive, modern, web standards, blah blah.

It is easy to get hype fatigue in this space, and how do you stand out without missing the mark? How do you tell users "Nue is all those things the other ones claim, only for real this time."?

Every framework wants to solve many of the same problems and if framework X is just a little better here or there then ...big deal? I'm not going to migrate a large codebase or learn a new framework for a 10% speedup or a slightly nicer reactive signaling syntax. What draws me to Nue is its dedication to things that matter to me:

• Obsessive focus on productivity and true developer ergonomics
• 'Just Works' philosophy: maybe I am projecting here, but that's the sense I get
• Lightweight, not just the JS but the HTML and the CSS too -- and designed to make my own JS, HTML and CSS lightweight too.
• Not reinventing the wheel: Tailwind is just the style attribute with extra steps; leveraging existing web standards means Nue users are learning to use the Web, not pigeonholing themselves into a career as a 'React Andy'
• Pragmatism: the right balance between size and features, performance vs. operational simplicity, convention vs. configuration. Framework X may be 60% faster at sorting 100k table rows, but if the difference is measured in milliseconds and framework X achieved the speedup by cutting key features and mangling the DX then it's not for me
• Driven by real world benefits rather than oversold or niche gimmicks
• Batteries included: It's not just a JS framework, it's a full suite for building MPAs. I do dream of more serverful features/patterns (lightweight MVC stuff, API endpoints, database use cases) in Nue, but I can be patient

Unfortunately, turning all that into a pithy 7-word hero header is an artform that I never fully mastered.