I don't do any work to normalize the platform, and I haven't for more than a decade. I used to have to do that a lot when I started out 20 years ago, but back then IE was very different and there were not native methods of parsing JSON. But, then I also remember jQuery was all the rage and it would frequently break IE so I had to normalize that madness too.
> And lastly, compare that with the experience of just using a mainstream JavaScript framework.
Modern frameworks require much greater effort. The trick to writing vanilla JavaScript is to not do things the way you would in your giant framework. Just keep things simple. A state model is an object. Event handlers are functions, that can be reused. Just keep it simple and its far less effort.
> And lastly, compare that with the experience of just using a mainstream JavaScript framework.
Modern frameworks require much greater effort. The trick to writing vanilla JavaScript is to not do things the way you would in your giant framework. Just keep things simple. A state model is an object. Event handlers are functions, that can be reused. Just keep it simple and its far less effort.