I was so sick of needing so many dependencies, build tools, and various things to simply have a frontend project with JavaScript code. Looking at the landscape of supported technologies in current browsers and realized you can use CSS variables, ES Modules, and even change light/dark styles based on the user’s operating system theme preferences without build tools.

This starter template uses Flexbox for the application layout, starts you off with PureCSS framework, FontAwesome, and the Fira Code Font.

5 JS libraries have been vendored:

  • Underscore: JS helpers, required for Backbone
  • Backbone: Old and stable MVC style JS framework
  • ChartJS: For rendering Charts
  • Moment: DateTime library because DateTime things suck by hand
  • Zepto: A jQuery-like lightweight replacement library

And there it is. No webpack, parcel, babel. No node_modules directory filled with 30k+ dependencies.

Though I do have to say the way normal CSS variables are implemented is a tad strange. SCSS style variables would be nice. Here’s hoping the next iteration of CSS allows rule nesting.

https://gitlab.com/WA9ACE/frontend-starter