The reason one picks up a new JavaScript technology is because it is a better and smarter way of working.
Wave after wave of innovation is bringing better and smarter ways of doing things.
There seems to be some sort of vague idea that JavaScript programmers are following new libraries and frameworks like there is a Solid Gold Hit Parade of JavaScript and they all jump onto the number #1, and next month there is a new #1 so everybody changes to that simply because it is the new #1. That would be stupid.
I use ReactJS because it is a great way to program and gives and application an excellent and functional structure. I use ES2015 and ES7 because they make JavaScript very much more powerful than ES5. If something radically better comes along then damn right I'll switch to it if I can, because "better" means smarter, easier, faster, more powerful - some combination of those to a greater or lesser extent.
The JavaScript community desperately needs a fresh wave of innovation - but this wave must be about simplification - ideally the almost complete removal of all the pain associated with configuration of JavaScript build tools, which right now is excruciatingly and unnecessarily complex and painful - create-react-app has started this process and sets the standard for other tools moving ahead - the right amount of configuration is zero.
It is necessary to use a bunch of painful JavaScript configuration and build tools in order to get your stuff to run. Waves of better, simpler and smarter build tools overrun the previous generation because they have found simpler and easier and more powerful ways to work.
Lets just drop the idea that JavaScript programmers are a bunch of airheads who follow the latest trends whilst they pull on their flared pants and fancy hairstyles.
10 ShinyNewJSFramework = 1
20 Use framework
30 Do conference speech about how much better it is than JQuery
40 Hit problem X
50 Find ShinyNewJSFramework is nigh impossible to debug
60 Eventually come to loathe framework because of problem X
70 ShinyNewJSFramework += 1
80 GOTO 20I am intrigued and ponder the idea of there being "JS Standard Libs" and wonder which ones will initially get picked for the honor. I don't think it will be React or Angular but definitely "something" like them, even if it is a version of Web Components.
That'll also mark a huge change in performance and download metrics, because if your browser already has your framework built in, your delivered code base is suddenly a fraction of what it was. And then there will be more opportunities there, too - dynamically providing the framework where needed in a separate code split, vs. a browser that does not need it.
We're just at the beginning, really. Browsers stalled for 15 years and have shifted into a period of innovation again.
Segmentation fault. Core dumped.
$ ls
brain.coreI've specifically tried to avoid Choo/Vue/Whatever until there has been real traction in the job market and the community behind that framework. BUT the move from each 'framework' to the next has been a revelation in how to do things better.
I feel comfortable now that React is delivering an ecosystem that is going from strength to strength and has brought a maturity to the front-end javascript ecosystem that was missing. Huge props to the community for that.
- why can't old libraries/frameworks/things evolve, instead of forcing a breaking change? In many other languages evolution seems to preferred to revolution; in JS, evolution seems to be the norm.
- Is that "better and smarter way of working" THAT MUCH BETTER AND SMARTER? When working JS, it seems that a complete overhaul of an application (or of an ecosystem) is required every very few years. Ultimately, software development should lead to business value; does the improvement in generated business value justify the costs associated with such a tech twirl?
Absolutely yes. ReactJS is an application architecture that is a complete rethink of how to structure client side applications, and it is an architecture that is being applied outside JS and the browser because it is so much better. The fundamental concept of one way data flow from parent to child through the application requires a start from scratch approach, and would be severely compromised were it to be implemented as an "additional" evolution of some existing application framework such as AngularJS. Yes - that much better and smarter.
ES2015/ES7 are radically better languages that make hugely important changes to JavaScript. Yes - that much better and smarter.
Transpilers make it possible to run ES2015/ES7 even on browsers that support only ES5 - that is amazing - yes - that much better and smarter.
Build tools such as minifiers and packers and uglifiers perform magic to shrink and optimise code for a range of benefits including end users performance - Yes - that much better and smarter than sending a chunk of raw JS to the browser.
In short, yes, JavaScript is experiencing a continuous wave of really major and significant improvements that justify ditching the previous generation entirely.
I will say however that breaking changes give me the shits abut for the most part I am willing to endure them - I simply must assume that the changes are for the better because I don't have time to really understand every single change in every library that goes into my application - no JavaScript developer does - nor indeed does any Python developer try to understand every change to all the Python libs that they use.
Look at Android for comparison:
- ReactJS: React Native, also any overall architecture like MVVM or MVP.
- ES2015/ES7: JDK 7/8
- Transpilers: Kotlin
- Minifiers/packers: proguard and others
- Gulp and co.: gradle
- Other libraries: android has a number of libraries to handle network requests, image loading, animations etc.
What I'm trying to put across is that JS has transitioned from a language that would show and hide elements of the DOM to a serious language used everywhere.
A good developer takes the time to understand the tooling around their platform and language.
I have just inherited a project written in 100% ES5 and I had forgotten how obscenely verbose JS <= ES5 really was. Every extra line of code is a liability and will slow down app development. Language features support precision and conciseness and that in turn promotes enterprise-level development. A toy language (old JS) can never support a full in-browser application.
Scala, Purescript, Haskell, Elm, ...
1. By far, has the largest ecosystem.
2. If you use a linter, a typechecker (TS or flow), and transpile your code (TS or babel or both), JavaScript is actually a pretty nice language to work in.
Sure it's a chore to set up all the initial tooling, and learn the ins and outs. However, once you're past that, it's usually not worth it to switch.
2. It's still far from the state of the art in PL design and missing:
* Nice static typing with type inference
* Nice guarantees about null access
* Nice guarantees about interop between client and server
* ...
>However, once you're past that, it's usually not worth it to switch.
That is somewhat circular and can be said of virtually anything. That is, for every minute you invest in a tech, the degree to which it is worthwhile to switch to another tech diminishes. I'm speaking primarily about tech like frameworks that is aimed at making us more productive.
The exception might be a truly revolutionary new tech that sharply boosts productivity, but also has a very low learning curve. However, that scenario seems particularly unicorn-ish where JS frameworks are concerned.
But especially when you are working with other developers and a mixture of skill levels, impedance mismatches are useful paper-cuts to try to minimize.
I agree, it's not a strong argument, but it is an applicable argument to the discussion. There are trade-offs in every decision, and this is a consideration in those trade-offs.
With javascript, as far as a I can tell, "change in a library" means you do indeed throw out the library and adopt a new one, then write your entire code again from scratch and repeat the cycle next year. To me, that sounds like madness and just makes me happy I don't have to deal with all this.
Reality is very different from these discussions.
You can with a 10 line HTML file and linking a few CDNs make an interactive application that can reach 1 billion people with no install and no buffer overflows. That's magic. The 90s wish they could do that.
And standardization takes many years to reach mass adoptions. No language come close to such a mess. Even Python 2 to 3 migration wasn't as complex.
Yet, they move fast, faster than those languages that are controlled by one authority.
Frameworks are important because at the lower level, things are not as simple to get done as those language with only one authority.
They API agreed by the authorities will definitely be thin. So the community step up with frameworks.
You would think creating, say, a form with a button and a textarea, and getting references to those things would be simple, but it's crazy painful in vanilla JS.
Of those who want JavaScript experience, it's usually followed with "Do you have any .NET experience?"
It's not the JS world, it's the browsers world. I think a better comparison is iOS vs Android vs web development.
In other environments (e.g. Python, Java) nobody expects you to know everything about the specific libraries used in a company; once you know the language and a bit about the technologies (e.g. work on Linux, on a webapp or a desktop app), you're good, you'll pickup the details while working.
Forcing a technology change because it's not the "latest and greatest big, shiny thing"... I find this is a slightly disturbing trend in frontend development.