I never quite understand arguments like yours. As aquark pointed out, it's 'frameworks all the way down' anyways. Unless you're a one-of-a-kind master, you're always relying on multiple levels of abstraction.

I don't know who pointed it out, but I find that a good rule of thumb is to master at least one layer of abstraction below the 'current' one. So in the case of React, you'd first make sure you are proficient with javascript, the DOM, and how the web works.

If your point is to underline that using frameworks without understanding them is a bad thing, I fully agree. But arguing that 'these things' (frameworks) are bad just seems silly.

Clearly some clever people at Facebook found it useful to abstract certain things in a certain way, and many other people (some clever) like their approach. They've actively considered IanDrake's problem (in fact, they talk about this in their talk on React), and felt that their solution was good.

If I can build a performant client-side-heavy web-app in half the time because of React, I'm doing the client a service, not a disservice.

Here's my experience with frameworks:

They're really good at getting you to 80% completion really fast. The next 10% takes a little work but its doable. But that last 10%... its like pulling teeth. With tweezers. Covered in grease.

That last 10% is the thing you need done to successfully deliver the project but which the framework designers didn't consider.

In my experience you always run into that last 10%. The net result is that all those speed gains you realized early on are completely lost (and then some) because you're fighting with the framework.

So sure, understanding the framework might help you with that last 10%. But I personally think you're better served mastering JS, the DOM, and how the web works. Which really isn't that hard by the way!

And anyway, if frameworks were so great why are there so many? It seems like a new framework gets announced every week here on HN. The shear tonnage of frameworks alone makes me question their value[1].

Now if none of that can convince you, consider this; the company I work for got rid of all their framework programmers and replaced them with me and a couple other software developers who have experience building products without using frameworks. And they pay us more money than they paid the framework programmers. Why? Because we did more work with better quality in the first six months than those other guys could do in 2 years of gluing framework code together. That last 10% hit them HARD and cost them their damn jobs!

1: I do recognize that frameworks provide value. My argument is that they are way overused. Great for building working or semi-working prototypes in order to test an idea in the market. Terrible for building anything that needs to be continuously maintained.

So if i may ask, what do you use?

Just raw DOM manipulations?

I feel like your argument is partially valid, but your argument also sounds like it effectively argues for pure Assembly. Anything ontop of that costs you a ton at the 10% mark. Now, i understand there's a difference between a Framework and a Language, but i hope you can understand my point.

I feel like you're going to one extreme, and arguing against another. Arguing opinionated frameworks with equal opinionated design seems odd to me.

Lastly, what are your thoughts on code maintenance? I feel like there is something to be said for "Get it done" thinking and "Make it maintainable", and sometimes they don't see eye-to-eye.

If it's cleanly written, with a framework that makes sense, isn't it far easier to maintain than raw JS? (Not specifically about React, just in general)

Disclaimer: I like React quite a bit. But i don't think you're "wrong", we just see things differently.

I prefer libraries. I'm partial to jQuery[1] for DOM manipulation, simple effects, and AJAX. I love Underscore. Both libraries allow me to pick and choose which parts of them I can use without imposing on me to do it The $FrameworkName Way. That said, when I can use pure JS I do.

    Lastly, what are your thoughts on code maintenance? I feel like there is something to be said for "Get it done" thinking and "Make it maintainable", and sometimes they don't see eye-to-eye.

You're right, they don't always see eye-to-eye. Frameworks are handy if you need to "get it done". You also need to educate your customer that you will have to make trade-offs and cut corners when trying to just "get it done". But I also argue that with enough experience you can, in fact, get it done and make it maintainable. I've seen that time and again.

The reason I don't believe you can write something cleanly with a framework and it be easier to maintain is that the framework is a black box of unknowns. So one option, as someone else has mentioned, is to try to fully understand that black box. But then you've just tied yourself to that framework. Wouldn't you be better served mastering the technology that the framework is written in?

1: jQuery proper. jQueryUI isn't too bad but is still a little more black box than I prefer. I really dislike jQuery Mobile for all the reasons I dislike frameworks.

The biggest problem I've found is that while theoretically frameworks should be easier to maintain (and if used right, they might be), in practice using frameworks are an excuse for developers to do something quickly, The <Framework> Way be damned.

The result of all this is code that is harder to maintain, even for those who know how to use said framework.

While I'm not against frameworks myself (in fact I argued in favor of them in this very conversation), I have become much more weary of them. In fact, after a brief affair with CoffeeScript I've even come to be more hesitant about using that or other 'transpilers', as I recently ran into the problem where I had to revert to plain js and I discovered that I'd lost some proficiency.

That said, it depends partly on the developers, and partly on the amount of structure the framework forces you into.

And that said, I suspect using a framework often serves more to alleviate managers' concern about maintainability than anything else.

There's one case where I would strongly suggest someone use a framework though, especially an opinionated one such as Rails. By following the Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl, I learned a lot about best practices that I wouldn't have learned had I cobbled together a bunch of libraries. So for beginning developers, a framework might help them get started with their prototypes and whatnot.

Then again, maybe that worked for me because I can't help but want to look behind the curtain... I've certainly met my share of developers who never seen to wonder what's behind the magic.

Thanks for the additional insight, appreciated :)

The trouble is that many devs can't see past that 80% to see the 20% that's left. They whip up a little app at night, it works really nicely and they assume this means the app they're working on during the day should be "rewritten" in the framework-du-jour. Then they hit that 20% "wall", blame the framework as "lame" and start hunting for an alternative. Rinse and repeat.

Last year I got excited about NodeJS and started working with it quite heavily. Then I started to see holes - difficult debugging, so-so tooling for development, mixed bag of JS components, and so on. I then stepped back and realized that although it was interesting, and I can see it useful for some specialized server-side development, I don't see it as compellingly different than current alternatives (Rails, .NET, PHP, etc) to try to build a whole web app with it.

To extend your argument, I would state that frameworks are only about speeding up the initial creation of an application that fits into a narrow set of assumptions. Frameworks, by their very nature, capture a set of decisions by their designers about how an app should work (or behave). As long as your app fits nicely into this box and you can live with the downstream risk that maybe it won't one day, then go for it.

I agree with the clarification that there are differences between Rails, .NET, PHP, and NodeJS. Rails & .NET are frameworks (strictly speaking, .NET is an amalgamation of frameworks and languages). PHP and NodeJS are languages.

Put that way, I fully agree. If I were to hire programmers for my company, I'd rather have a few like yourself than a bunch of Rails devs that don't really know Ruby nor Rails' internals (for example). And I've worked at a bunch of places where the effects of using frameworks without fully understanding them were readily apparent.

I took issue mostly with the blanket statement that frameworks are bad, because I think there's a lot of variety. Backbone, for example, is so basic that it might be useful for 'master' programmers, whereas Rails is a monster framework that is a bitch to handle if you get to that 10%. And I'd argue React, which is more of a library, could be a very useful abstraction that leaves you free to do things your own way, or even replace it eventually. But I might be wrong about that! I'm not a master...

Also, I guess in the context of the framework/library-explosion it makes sense that you'd point out the problems with a little less nuance :). And it's a good reminder for me as a young framework-raised, self-taught whipper-snapper to make sure I become a master at my 'craft'.

And not just because it pays better.

That's a terrible argument my dude. Do me a solid, what do ya'lls variable names look like right now? Or just real quick, LOC on the smallest file you got.

What kind of useful metric could variable names and lines of code possibly provide?

Frameworks decrease LOC, which drastically improve readability. Any shorthand variables decrease readability. Frameworks are great at enforcing these rules.

If your average LOC is ever more than 200 lines or so, you've got a messy app.

React is a paradigm with only one existing implementation.

Ranting against frameworks represented by React is a strawman here. It doesn't include a router, nor a model layer, nor the traditional controller. It's a miracle that it's even compared to Angular and Ember, but I guess that's the extent of the power of View + solid declarative nature, so we'll take it as a compliment.

We also don't want to turn it into a huge framework, so if that's your only concern here, then please feel free to give it a try =).

Of course it really is frameworks all the way down. Unless maybe you're building systems by laying out your own transitors.

The trick is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of any given framework and match those with the constraints of your project.

I disagree that its frameworks all the way down. There is a distinction between frameworks and libraries. React, Angular, et al are frameworks in the truest sense of the word.

Things like jQuery and Underscore on down to stdio.h are libraries. You can pick and choose from what they contain but they're not so tightly coupled that they get in your way.

They're a tool belt with tools that do one thing and do it really well. Frameworks are like having a tool belt with a hammer that also has a saw on the end but in order to use the saw you have to grab the screwdriver even if you're not actually using it.

Thanks for pointing out the distinction. I forget about that sometimes.

That said, React is a "A Javascript Library for Building User Interfaces." And to me me it does feel more like a library than a framework.

I would argue that React is closer to a library than a framework. It's a small library with some useful functions for making web components. It helps by removing a bunch of boilerplate code that you would have to re-write with each new app. The thing that it doesn't do is hold you hand and tell you exactly the way things should be done as some of the other frameworks do.

React is a library, plain and simple. It has literally no opinions on even basic stuff like routing, or how to manage application data.

It takes your data as an input and by some mechanism lays out a visual representation of it defined by your components render methods, being sure to update the visual representation as the data changes. The rest are implementation details.

I'm curious which part of React you consider the hammer and which part you consider the screwdriver.

The thing is, for the web you should not need frameworks at all. A couple of libs maybe, but what we are seeing now is getting ridiculous.