Decide our front-end technology stack

[jmitchellgreen]

We have a variety of choices for tools in our toolbox.

To start, do we want to use any frameworks/libraries (e.g. React, Angular, Vue, etc.) or should we use vanilla Javascript?

Vanilla Javascript

• Pro's
  • Simple to start
  • Accessible for beginners or those without extensive front-end experience
  • Works well with mapping libraries (e.g. Leaflet)
• Con's
  • Can be difficult to scale
  • Gets more complex for a "Single Page Application" (SPA)

Javascript frameworks/libraries

• Pro's
  • Can be good as we scale up the website
  • Better tool for a "Single Page Application" website
  • Can be powerful for more experienced front-end developers
• Con's
  • Can be difficult develop for beginners
  • Need to use wrappers for mapping libraries (e.g. react-leaflet)
  • wrappers could potentially be error-prone

---

Once we decide for frameworks vs. vanilla Javascript, next we need to choose which mapping library we want to use

After my personal research/experience, two main choices arise:

• Leaflet
• Maplibre GL JS

Leaflet

• Pro's
  • Simple to use (with vanilla javascript)
  • Easy for beginners
• Con's
  • Slower to render many features

Maplibre

• Pro's
  • Faster to render many features
• Con's
  • Harder to get started

Please let me know what you all think! This is all my personal opinion so please feel free to modify this list or comment your thoughts. - Mitchell

[qtrandev]

I've used Leaflet in the past so that will be useful, but I'm willing to work with others on Maplibre

[royemosby]

Should you choose React, I found a tutorial on tying it together with Maplibre