Almost a year ago me and a bunch of other few ppl got an app on which another team worked for three years and produced nothing usable. It was a web app, not really small.

The guys before us used CSS, plain HTML and hand-knitted Javascript.

We started out with a complete rewrite using qooxdoo, which does not require one bit of CSS or HTML, but exclusively JS code.

In one year, we produced the full app, working as intended. IMO, without a JS framework to allow us bypass layout issues we wouldn’t have gotten that far in five years.

My take on the issue: it all depends. If you are really doing a templates-based web site, maybe even one composed of basic static pages, the approach promoted by this article is the sound one. If you actually do a heavy-weight web app, with hundreds of dialogs, data grids, trees, complex forms etc., use a framework or you’ll break your neck. What the framework provides isn’t just layout. A framework takes over all layout issues, making all browsers equal, and lets you focus on the functionality, while also allowing you to manage complexity.