You are correct. The minimum needed to generate dynamic HTML is a string builder, not a fancy framework.
Frameworks exist for Software at Scale (TM). Big Corp has a revolving door of developers and they need cookie cutter tools that isolate the damage a "bad" developer can cause. If you're a solo developer or a small company, then this digital bureaucracy is unnecessary.
I couldn't disagree more. I work on a very small team, and our current projects use big modern JS frameworks. Our productivity has never been higher. I absolutely hate having to touch old projects, that I had to build from much lower level APIs.
Your "very small team" of under 5 developers is still what React, et al. target.
Developers leave about every two years. Engineering management want to use technologies that allow for resource flexibility, and those libraries are designed to attract both parties. You, and management, for different reasons.
The component model is a very powerful technique for keeping large amounts of complex code maintainable. I worked in large amounts of tricky jQuery before the component model and I would never wish to go back.
JSX works well for a component approach because you’re expressing the component in a fully functional programming language. Doing a lot of that work tends to make the developer quite capable in Javascript.
Frameworks exist for Software at Scale (TM). Big Corp has a revolving door of developers and they need cookie cutter tools that isolate the damage a "bad" developer can cause. If you're a solo developer or a small company, then this digital bureaucracy is unnecessary.