My biggest issues with Svelte in 2025...

Summary

The video explores the speaker's deepening appreciation for the Spelt framework as they become more proficient with it. Despite initial challenges and missing features, such as new stores, the speaker finds that Spelt's simplicity and cohesive structure lead to a highly satisfying development experience. They discuss how understanding the mental model behind the framework enhances the user's workflow, making it a powerful tool for building modern web applications. Overall, the speaker highlights Spelt as a highly enjoyable framework, with a few minor issues but otherwise a strong preference for it.

Takeaways

• 😀 Spelt is an enjoyable and highly appreciated framework once you become comfortable with its structure and components.
• 😀 The framework feels intuitive once you understand how all the parts fit together.
• 😀 Despite initial challenges with certain features, like working with runes and dependencies, the overall experience with Spelt becomes very smooth over time.
• 😀 The use of stores in Spelt is convenient, offering an alternative to more traditional component-heavy designs.
• 😀 Spelt's approach to managing reactive data with stores makes it feel effortless to work with, compared to other frameworks.
• 😀 Once you get a solid mental model of Spelt, using it becomes a very satisfying experience, with minimal frustrations.
• 😀 Although there are some small issues, the benefits of Spelt outweigh the cons, making it a strong framework choice.
• 😀 The absence of a clear structure or over-complication in Spelt's design makes it a pleasant tool for developers who appreciate simplicity and efficiency.
• 😀 The video creator is actively leaning on Spelt's new stores and libraries, which has helped make minor issues feel less significant.
• 😀 The creator encourages continued exploration of Spelt and its various features, suggesting more content will follow for those interested.
• 😀 Overall, Spelt has become the creator's go-to framework, and they are unlikely to switch to anything else due to its user-friendly design and strong developer experience.

Q & A

What are the rune primitives introduced in Svelte 5, and why are they significant?

The rune primitives introduced in Svelte 5 are state, effect, and derived. These primitives are important because they provide a simple and elegant way to manage reactivity in Svelte applications. They allow developers to easily create reactive values (state), handle side effects (effect), and compute derived values based on other reactive states, making Svelte more intuitive and powerful.

How do the new rune primitives impact the development experience in Svelte?

The new rune primitives significantly improve the development experience by simplifying reactivity. Developers can easily create reactive variables and manage side effects. The primitives are especially useful in simple scenarios, enhancing code clarity and reducing boilerplate, but they can introduce complexity in more advanced use cases, such as integrating with third-party libraries.

What challenges does the speaker face when integrating Svelte with third-party libraries?

The speaker faces challenges when trying to integrate Svelte with third-party libraries, particularly in managing reactivity in more complex scenarios. For example, when using libraries like React Query, the lack of a dependency array for effects and derived values makes it harder to control reactivity, leading to potential issues in state synchronization and data fetching.

What is the speaker's view on SvelteKit's ecosystem compared to React's?

The speaker views SvelteKit's ecosystem as less mature compared to React's. While React offers a well-developed ecosystem with libraries like React Query and ShadCN, Svelte's alternatives are either underdeveloped or lacking the same level of polish and community support. This makes certain tasks in SvelteKit, like handling markdown, more difficult due to the lack of specialized libraries.

Why does the speaker appreciate Svelte's flexibility with JavaScript libraries?

The speaker appreciates Svelte's flexibility because it allows developers to use plain JavaScript libraries without needing specialized wrappers or framework-specific patterns, as is the case with React. This enables Svelte to integrate external libraries seamlessly and reduces the friction that comes with using complex third-party solutions.

How does SvelteKit's 'one component per file' approach affect the development process?

Initially, the 'one component per file' rule in Svelte felt restrictive compared to React, where multiple components could be grouped in a single file. However, as the speaker gained more experience with SvelteKit, they grew to appreciate this approach. It encourages better separation of concerns and results in cleaner, more maintainable code by isolating components into distinct files.

How does SvelteKit handle state management differently from React?

SvelteKit handles state management differently by encouraging the use of stores and classes for managing state. This leads to a clearer separation between state logic and components, improving code organization. Unlike React, where state is typically managed within components, Svelte promotes handling state in separate classes or stores, making it easier to maintain and scale.

What does the speaker mean by 'the mental model' of SvelteKit?

The 'mental model' of SvelteKit refers to the understanding of how its components, reactivity, and stores work together. As the speaker becomes more familiar with this model, they find it easier to navigate SvelteKit's structure and efficiently use its features, resulting in a more intuitive development experience.

What is the overall sentiment the speaker expresses about using SvelteKit over time?

The speaker expresses a positive sentiment toward SvelteKit over time. Although they faced initial challenges, particularly with reactivity and third-party libraries, they have come to appreciate SvelteKit's simplicity, elegance, and powerful reactivity model. The speaker now finds SvelteKit to be a highly enjoyable and efficient framework for building applications.

What minor issues does the speaker mention in relation to using SvelteKit?

The speaker mentions a few minor issues with SvelteKit, such as the lack of a dependency array for effects and derived states, which can complicate reactivity in advanced scenarios. Additionally, the speaker finds the ecosystem to be underdeveloped compared to React, especially when it comes to third-party libraries and specialized tools like markdown rendering.