Comment by johncolanduoni 9 hours ago
What effect do you imagine Next.js has on a bunch of code manipulating an HTML canvas? For vanilla code directly using browser APIs it’s basically just a bundler configuration, and while it’s not optimally configured for that use case (and annoying for other reasons) it’s probably better than what someone who has never configured webpack before would get doing it themselves.
Okay, but it’s a web game. Those will make up less than 0.1% of the downloaded bytes required to render the first frame of the game. One image asset will dwarf the entire gzip/brotli Next.js/React framework.
What is the use case for bundling next.js with the web game? Just the layout of the page surrounding the game canvas? It just seems unnecessary, that's all. Traditionally, software development in general and game development in particular has tried to avoid unnecessary overhead if it doesn't provide enough value to the finished product.
It's obvious why he didn't write the game in x86 assembly. It's also obvious why he didn't burn the game to CD-ROM and ship it to toy stores in big box format. Instead he developed it for the web, saving money and shortening the iteration time. The same question could be asked about next.js and especially about taking the time to develop Bun rather than just scrapping next.js for his game and going about his day. It's excellent for him that he did go this route of course, but in my opinion it was a strange path towards building this product.
Well for one, it ships next.js and react.js bundled in with the code manipulating an HTML canvas.