In Java or C++, there's a reasonable expectation that common popular libraries will keep getting updated for quite a while after you start using them... mindshare doesn't hemorrhage rapidly.

Not remotely true with JavaScript. Something which got 2k stars on gitub this year might be on the way out in a year, and you'll be stuck figuring out whether it still works with the new version of d3.js, or on the newest Chrome... and if it doesn't you have to either move on or fix it yourself.

Javascript developers need to make a transition like php and others have to module based apps, where you import just the libraries you need.

With things like require its not like it would be difficult to role your own framework like you can with php and composer (+all the symfony / laravel modules)

That's what using Browserify with CommonJS modules accomplishes, and has wide adoption. ES6 also specifies a module system, but it remains to be seen how that gets used or when it becomes the norm.

Yes and no. Libraries like jQuery and Underscore are often the basis of new frameworks and have been solid for a while now.

Like in other languages there's some wait and see to adoption. Going all in on a project that's been on GitHub a month no matter how many stars is foolish. JS devs have to make their decisions this way.

>Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework?

Yes. Not all forcing is of the "gun pointed at you" kind.

There's also: peer pressure, fads, media coverage, changing demands from employers, etc.

So like everything else in life then? For instance I just saw a TV commercial that said that Miller Lite is the best beer, but my past experience knows that that is not the case. Surely we can recognize hype and advertisements when we see them.

The only valid excuse here is your employer, but in that case you should be able justify why using X is better than Y. If your non-technical manager insists that you use something that you don't want to because its hip you should be running away from that employer as quickly as possible.

>So like everything else in life then? For instance I just saw a TV commercial that said that Miller Lite is the best beer, but my past experience knows that that is not the case. Surely we can recognize hype and advertisements when we see them.

Not really. That's some conscious processing that you did, and that we can do -- but only to certain degree. When we go and buy stuff, the advertisments we've seen affect us, not just in what brand we'll buy, but in the very basic act of buying something over nothing, and how much we'll buy of a product.

It's a whole, much studied, field with tons of tunable parameters, from the psychology of a tv, to the height of stuff in Costo's shelves, the colors and smells inside a supermarket (and lots of stuff for web shops too), down to the $x.99 kind of pricing.

Demands from employers may be considered forcing. The rest, not even close.

That's an ideology, that thinks that people are all 100% responsible for everything they do, can judge everything consciously, and cannot be manipulated to do stuff by things like advertising or peer pressure.

Sociological studies have proven time and again that this is not the case -- including in people that think that that's impossible for themselves (sort of like the Dunning–Kruger effect).

manipulation is not force. if you have to redefine words to make your point correct then you didn't make a point.

also, if you're going to assert there are studies that make your conclusion somehow not an ideology, then the actual citations would be good. and they'll have to be fairly interesting to convince me. sociology is full of outright fraud, without even considering all the papers suffering from poor experimental design and rampant conclusion jumping.

> We're still allowed to use what we want, no matter how new or old it is, right?

Yes, but that means you may be on your own to support it, which means extra up-front work as well as maintenance.

For example, keep in mind that Javascript has changed execution environments and was also originally built without the concept of simply importing other JS files. So over the years, we have had various incompatible ways of packaging and even importing modules[0]. Yes, the situation is improving, and ES6 and polyfills sort of fix this, but let me tell you, it is not fun to deal with old code that assumes a different execution environment and/or build process than the one you're using[1].

[0] e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16521471/relation-betwee...

[1] I really don't want to turn this into a debate on the best way to package or import Javascript projects today - just to point out that yes, there is a cost to using old code, regardless of how good it was at the time it was written.

Not that I disagree with your basic point, but I also see no reason to assume that using something new/trendy like React or Angular 2 will be any better a year or two from now. It has always been the case that building around a framework trades off quick initial development and having reasonable defaults for a lot of common tasks against often making more specialised tasks harder and the risk that within the lifetime of your project the framework you rely on will no longer be supported and developed as actively as it was when you first adopted it.

"Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework?"

Yes, It's called the Internet. People read articles about how X is the best. thing. evar. And this is perpetuated through many blog posts and, well, a lot of developers actually believe it.

If these JavaScript developers are so gullible to the newest thing it says more about them than the hype cycle.

It's not just that the language sucks in some ways but that the users of it possess so little engineering rigor that they complain about TOO MANY options.

Let me just put here a notation about the vast majority of JS programmers that are not complaining about all the libraries/options. And there are whiny, bitchy people using other languages, too. It's easy to generalize, so I understand the impulse.

You're right, I am unfairly generalizing. Not everyone thinks this way. But I read more of these articles regarding JS than any other language.

That's a good point, and it certainly lends credibility to your claim. It makes me wonder what causes this. My instinct is that JS attracts more people to it from things like design, where people seem to fawn over (seemingly trivial) things like the meaning of certain kinds of ovals. And so I think it would follow that this kind of mentality bleeds over into some aspects of JavaScript.

It's no longer "if".

It has becoming a reality slowly...

Sure. You're allowed to use what you want... if you don't work with/for anyone who's sure that The Way Good Developers Do Things Now is DependencyInjectAllTheThings.js or MVVMVVM.js or Reflux.js.

I mean, you're passionate about keeping your skills updated, right?