It's not a joke, it's intended to convey the wisdom of not thinking "the next big thing" will solve all your problems, it is intended to focus on the importance of fundamentals, and of relying on using engineering skill to solve problems rather than fancy gadgets, it is to point out the value of developing technical acumen rather than becoming a tool bound technician.

If you define yourself by the technology you work with you aren't an engineer you're a technician.

It's not a joke. It's reality. It gets mentioned repeatedly because of how true it is.

I understand your frustration, but I think you’re missing what is actually meant to be a helpful takeaway from this.

Essentially, all these frameworks ARE part of a cycle that repeat, and in time we all start to see it. Most of them just iterate on previous concepts, with some core concepts going way back to the late 60s, 70s and 80s.

What remains the same is the underlying Javascript language itself, and more importantly, fundamental software engineering and computer science principles.

Learn the fundamentals, and they will help you learn every new framework and language more easily, and in more depth.

If you really just want to get a job using JavaScript, then you might be best off browsing job postings to see what kinds of companies are hiring for which frameworks, and go from there.

But if your goal is literally to learn JS and find the right tech stack for you, unfortunately there is no replacement for learning the basics, and then picking a framework that looks interesting, and building something in it to see if it clicks with you.

It is because its true and once you get through the endless cycles of your newly chosen framework you will adapt a similar mind.

adopt better methodologies, languages (TS, ReasonML, etc), find what works for you, automate the hard part, find reusable patterns, don't settle for the popular but mediocre new stuff (eg. React)

this is how everything echos through time, no joke