I would have to emphatically disagree. The application architecture of the contemporary web - a distributed system which involves smearing application state and logic by transporting code and data dynamically as needed from one location to another - has only existed for at most 15 years (since the advent of "fast javascript" with V8 and the growth of the set of APIs that enable rich network interaction, which we can summarize crudely as "web 2.0" or "AJAX" or what have you).

The flux and frenzy in the space is much more a sympton of the novel nature of the application architecture, the size and speed of growth of industry around it, and the rate of experimentation with frameworks and tools to quickly build extensive applications within it. Those are not self-inflicted, but circumstantial.

> That’s a separate issue from how smart people working on the issue may be.

I took particular issue with the original commenter dismissing an entire class of developers on the basis of what tools they worked with. I found it to be an example of gatekeeping that unfortunately is far too common in the industry.

I was the original commenter; stand by the comments. It's not gatekeeping. I don't think any particular area or specialty/focus of software development is better, requires more intelligence or anything like that. It was an observation of the state of affairs, not a commentary on worthiness.