As a server side dev I feel the same way about everything javascript related.

Handlebar and knockout were all the rage, I blinked and now it's all React.

Actually React may be dead and it's Vue.js that cool kids are using.

I just can't keep up :) Long live jquery.

With respect, as a full stack dev focused heavily on frontend these days (with react), I think what you've experienced as a blink was in fact a smooth transition over at least a couple of years. Of course, the javascript ecosystem changes more rapidly than most, but I think these things are apt to look exaggerated and very stepped when you're (I assume) checking in once every few months.

If you're working with this stuff day in day out, you see a much clearer and deeper picture where the pieces are added one by one in a smooth ramp, as the superior paradigm gradually replaces the older one in response to the needs of the developers who use it.

You're a JS developer watching "smooth transitions"?

#1 - no way you have more than 25 yrs on this planet...

#2 - I quit pretty hard about 6 months ago, not because JS...

#3 - Working with this shit day in and day out does not make you an expert, it makes you a shit expert. You've been eating the pie of some framework, and you think you know the taste.

#4 - You are right, there are plenty of shit pies out there and they pay well.

#5 - I used to sound just like that. And I have plenty of growing up to do.

#6 - It's NOT PERSONAL, none of it. It's CODE! Hack it!

(edit: formatting + a bit, edit 2: SP, edit #3, no respect :)

I know you don't mean this advice to be personal or offensive, but your assumptions about me are wrong, and so you're starting this conversation with me on a slightly weird footing, and I don't really know how to respond.

We may be more alike in experience and opinion than you realise :-) just start by treating me as an equal, and we can have a fruitful conversation about this stuff. I can probably learn a lot from you, and you from me.

accurate, except I was trying to rustle some jimmies... I get pretty heated about this stuff... I sincerely hope you've got it held down. I sure don't

why not just develop your own framework?

Since it's not a major version and Node is pretty good about respecting semver, you can either relatively safely blindly upgrade within the major version, or not care that much about "falling behind". Meanwhile, the fast movement means that people with good use for the changes in this release have fast access to them.

If you were affected by some of the bugs you'd be much happier that they did push this fix out instead of waiting just to make it feel like some people aren't getting "left behind".

Well they do have LTS versions https://github.com/nodejs/LTS#lts-schedule1

Yes and that is very nice.

You shouldn't've switched to node8 if you wanted a stable node: https://github.com/nodejs/LTS

In October node8 will be ready for LTS, & one can begin working out a migration plan from node6 (probably just an update, but impact)

The old double contraction!

I have the same feeling. Started a project with node4 not too long ago (1,5 years when I think) and haven't touched it for a while. Amazing to see that it's now already 4 major versions behind, and when I get to work on it again probably even more.

The positive thing is that they probably didn't remove or deprecate a lot of APIs, so I guess upgrading my own stuff is most likely not a huge effort. The bigger fear is how all the third party dependencies might cope with a node update.

Like Linux, Chrome, Ubuntu and many other major projects, Node has moved to a time based release schedule, so all that a major version number bump indicates is the passage of time. It doesn't give a good indication of the change velocity.

Well, you can always wait for a year before you check if they released a new version.

I've gotten burned by this in my ember projects a few times (admittedly some of it was my fault for not consistently updating all the packages in my package.json), so I just stick to LTS releases (which is still node 6) with all these platforms and frameworks now. Don't have time to keep up with all these changes so often, and I suspect others are in the same boat.

Same here. Ember is also such a project where you go on vacation for two weeks and come back to a project where it is now 3 versions behind.

Isn't 8 the latest LTS release?

They plan to designate it such in October, but it isn't yet.

>Sometimes it feels like Node moves too fast.

Huh? 99% of code written for 0.12 or 4 works still now, in 8.

It's not like they are piling up on features...

> there is some value in not releasing new stuff every week

No, there isn't. This flies in the face of everything we know about software quality. "Release early, release often". Rapid iteration. Continuous integration.

Smaller releases are easier to upgrade through. It creates a clear path through which to modify legacy code to come up to date with the latest version. Big bang releases create too many issues all at once that people tend to stick to the old version and then bitch about it for so long that even if you do make turn-key upgrading an option, they still won't do it coughPythoncough.

>No, there isn't. This flies in the face of everything we know about software quality. "Release early, release often".

That's not "everything we know" as in some gospel accepted by everybody.

"Release early, release often" is just one mantra of a particular development philosophy.

That does not work when it's a programming language or a library because people depend on it and don't want to have 8 versions of the interpreter/vm to support all the programs they may have that are written in that language. Rapid releases do work with applications.

Then don't support 8 versions. Only support latest, unless they are paying you to do otherwise. Quit giving work away for free.

But honestly, it's not that big of a deal. I've got code from v0.12.0 that still works on Node 8. People are making a really big deal out of nothing.

The longer language developers hold back changes, the less time it gives language users to upgrade. What would you rather them do? Sit on defect and security hole fixes? Just because you're uncomfortable with the rapid pace of technology change? It's the Singularity dude. It's not going to slow down. You either learn to live with it or end up in the same pile as FORTRAN programmers.

:) Yeah we live in a world of dual-option questions.

I'm speaking from a users' point of view. If one program works on Node 8, other on 6, other on 0.12 sth., what do I do? Keep n runtimes for n programs? I don't know node, but I don't know C++ too, should I not use Firefox or Chrome then? Node runtime versions are unfathomable for those who don't develop on node, and thus as a user I avoid running node programs.

Also, security fixes and bugfixes are expressed in semver w/ the last dot-seperated part of the number, the first number is the major version. If every fix breaks as much to bump up that number, then that's a bad sign too.

I would say a big advantage. Whenever I have needed to set up a system that uses Node recently (Mozillas Pontoon for example), Node always seems to cause problems.

Don't you remember io.js?