Really HTMX is the Big Deal for WordPress?

I just read this article on HTMX being a big deal for WordPress and I just don’t see it. To vastly simplify the article, give the code below and using the HTMX JavaScript library:

<a href="https://mysite.com/books" hx-target="#books">
	View Books
</a>

<div id="books"></div>

This tells HTMX to fetch the content at the /books location and populate it in the #books ID. Somehow this is better than making an AJAX call to do the exact same thing.

I just don’t see it. The author goes on to call WordPress a “monolithic PHP server” as if it’s a bad thing. To me it seems like people like hating on PHP and HTMX is simply a way to “make it modern” instead of using a traditional AJAX call.

I can’t say I see any benefit to HTMX at all. The good part is I don’t need to invest time into learning it then.