Wow, author of Cosmos here. For the record I didn't post this. So thanks to OP and everyone who upvoted. It's cool that Cosmos still generates new interest after so many years.
Yes, Cosmos is very similar to Storybook. It's also older, and I'm only saying this because I'm tired of getting asked how does it differ. Both projects provide an isolated component environment to help tackle complexity in single page apps. The difference boils down to setup compatibility and personal taste.
I'm not gonna lie, some of the comments are tough to process, but what can you do. I still appreciate all feedback and as usual I'll try to incorporate it as best as I can.
Unfortunately, anything on HN even remotely related to Javascript seems to be scrutinized much more severely than other projects. Oh, your website uses animations? Huge problem. Emojis in the README? Worthless project. I think people come into these threads just looking to air their grievances.
Cosmos looks awesome. Thank you for all your hard work. I've been using Storybook for a while, but I'll give Cosmos a try on my next project.
Thanks for writing this comment - indeed I feel like if I ever do make something open source, because of HN I would NEVER want anyone to actually use it - it might get posted.
JS is a horrible kludge that malignantly outgrew its original purpose. Incidentally, it's also the programming language sites happen to use to become unusable and abuse the user, but we'd be in the same boat if they used Python or whatever else, so the hate for JS that comes out of that is unfair.
Its far better than it was 10 years ago - JS hate is wielded here by people who haven't used it in years. Unlike C++ the language has changed (definitely for the better). I don't even particularly care much for it but the people who will sit here and lambast it while staunchly writing C++ as if that language isn't in an even worse mess is pretty silly.
I know your take is balanced but others in HN loveeee to hate JS just because they think its what they are supposed to do.
It's interesting that you chose C++ as your counter-example. It's a language that has also massively changed over the last 10 years. C++11 and later standards were a huge shift and most people would argue it's a much better language than 10 years ago.
I don't have a horse in this race though. I don't use Javascript or C++ in any meaningful capacity these days.
I do find some of the documentation/presentation à little bit confusing. I gather that when it says "fixture" - that means scaffolding to render a given component. When it says "visual tdd" - it does not mean to imply repeatable, automated red-green tests, but rather that it provides a sort of wysiwyg - or rather - wyciwys (what you code is what you see).
It's a band aid on the fact that we should be able to just draw widgets in a rich editor, but are stuck using text (code) to implement them?
(I don't mean band aid in a bad way for the project - it's just were we're at with web ux/ui. It's a bit like having postscript, but no wysiwyg dtp program to go with it).
Yes, Cosmos is very similar to Storybook. It's also older, and I'm only saying this because I'm tired of getting asked how does it differ. Both projects provide an isolated component environment to help tackle complexity in single page apps. The difference boils down to setup compatibility and personal taste.
I'm not gonna lie, some of the comments are tough to process, but what can you do. I still appreciate all feedback and as usual I'll try to incorporate it as best as I can.