You're definitely not alone in this. One of the core reasons my team chose Flutter was the fact we would not have to spend much time setting up development environments and making sure we were always using the latest and greatest framework.
You have now transitioned from saying that you don't have to spend as much time to set up a development environment to saying that it is pretty much free, which is even odder still.
Again, it's definitely not free (or "basically" free, either). Step 1 negates that statement. You have to set up a development environment. It takes some non-zero amount of effort.
In contrast, the browser is already there. It already runs JS. You don't have to do anything to make that happen[1]. And in saying it takes nothing, that's not merely "basically" nothing; it's literally nothing.
> Instead of installing/configuring/setting-up npm [and a bunch of other crap]
What if I told you that while you're free to opt for doing any/all of those things, none of it is actually necessary, let alone a good idea? (Or point out that TypeScript is not even JS, for that matter?) That you're totally allowed to ignore the GitHub busyworkers and write actual (i.e. straightforward, standards-compliant) JS—in contrast to much of what's available for NPM/NodeJS, where you are most often encouraged to write "JS" that's incompatible with what's in the standard (and what the browser makers actually implement)?
You seem to be suggesting that instead of installing a piece of software and running two commands is somehow inferior to writing untyped, unscalable javascript, hard refreshing the page each time to see your changes, loaded in yourself with script tags. This is the oddest argument of all (I can use that word too)
There is a reason people made these countless frameworks and solutions, but the benefit Flutter provides is it's an out-of-the-box fix, and yeah, installing some software and running two commands is an out-of-the-box fix.
In addition, the entirety of your argument just flat-out ignores the cross-platform aspect of it, targeting only the browser instead of mobile and desktop platforms as well.
> You have now transitioned from saying that you don't have to spend as much time to set up a development environment to saying that it is pretty much free, which is even odder still.
I truly don't understand this odd exercise in linguistic gymnastics, as these are both simultaneously and entirely true. You can resolve this yourself.
> You seem to be suggesting that instead of installing a piece of software and running two commands is somehow inferior to writing untyped, unscalable javascript, hard refreshing the page each time to see your changes, loaded in yourself with script tags.
Nope.
> This is the oddest argument of all (I can use that word too)
Oh, boy. That sounds bad. I guess it's a good thing that's an argument I'm not making it, then! (Also: I didn't use that word, FYI.)
