Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#21

Post by throwaway000020 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

davidbanham wrote: post #13

throwaway000020 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to build a real application and building real applications seems to need to sew together a whole bunch of real bits n pieces.

I build real applications out of real bits and pieces in a modern javascript stack. I do it for a living, have done for a while, and manage a team of people in a company that does it. Don't get hung up on tooling. Things like babel, webpack, ORMs, graphQL, gulp, react, redux, etc etc etc. They're all useful things that have a place in the world. If you try to grok all of them all at once you'll send yourself insane.…

The paradox is that IMO the simplest way forward is to use the most modern tools. The modern tools and languages are generally there to make things easier. The trouble is that you need to learn those tools and languages before you can get to do it the easy way.

For example, I really can't afford to program with any JavaScript language except ES2015 - I just don't have time to try to understand all the weird idiosyncrasies and underpowered crap that is older versions of JavaScript - I need to work with "JavaScript that makes sense" i.e. ES2015. But to do that I need to be able to wrap my head around - and fight all the myriad problems with - getting my ES2015 to compile using the webpack babel toolchain.

It's a strange thing about programming that to understand the easiest way to do it you need to have a higher order understanding of the entire programming system that you are working with.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#22

Post by _cudgel » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 10:50 PM UTC

throwaway000020 wrote: post #21

davidbanham wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I build real applications out of real bits and pieces in a modern javascript stack. I do it for a living, have done for a while, and manage a team of people in a company that does it. Don't get hung up on tooling. Things like babel, webpack, ORMs, graphQL, gulp, react, redux, etc etc etc. They're all useful things that have a place in the world. If you try to grok all of them all at once you'll send yourself insane.…

The paradox is that IMO the simplest way forward is to use the most modern tools. The modern tools and languages are generally there to make things easier. The trouble is that you need to learn those tools and languages before you can get to do it the easy way. For example, I really can't afford to program with any JavaScript language except ES2015 - I just don't have time to try to understand all the weird idiosyncr…

The paradox is that IMO the simplest way forward is...

I feel like this statement is the crux of the issue. Have you considered that your opinion is simply wrong?

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#23

Post by throwawayaway » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 10:52 PM UTC

throwaway000020 wrote: post #21

davidbanham wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I build real applications out of real bits and pieces in a modern javascript stack. I do it for a living, have done for a while, and manage a team of people in a company that does it. Don't get hung up on tooling. Things like babel, webpack, ORMs, graphQL, gulp, react, redux, etc etc etc. They're all useful things that have a place in the world. If you try to grok all of them all at once you'll send yourself insane.…

The paradox is that IMO the simplest way forward is to use the most modern tools. The modern tools and languages are generally there to make things easier. The trouble is that you need to learn those tools and languages before you can get to do it the easy way. For example, I really can't afford to program with any JavaScript language except ES2015 - I just don't have time to try to understand all the weird idiosyncr…

I'm with everyone else here that says you need to forget about the trendy junk and get the job done.

Think brutally effective rather than elegant or modern. The simplest most old fashioned method that will work is often good enough.

> The trouble is that you need to learn those tools and languages before you can get to do it the easy way.

this is never some weird tradeoff, this is simply people selling you bullshit and you buying in.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#24

Post by krisajenkins » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 10:53 PM UTC

throwaway000020 wrote: post #12

hyuuu wrote: post #5

I know exactly where you coming from, ESPECIALLY if you are in the javascript ecosystem. There are a lot of gaps in the whole flow, from what you have mentioned, build tools, frameworks, standards, architecture (flux? mvc?) Personally, I would suggest, to go at it one at a time. The reason being, these "things" (build tools, frameworks, etc) are there to solve specific problems. If you don't have that problem, then y…

Yes I am in the JavaScript ecosystem. I feel like I'm trying to escape from an Amazonian jungle of errors and things that don't work, trying to find a path that appears and disappears and sometimes is trodden by others and sometimes grown over, always with thorns and strangle vines, dead ends, thousand foot waterfall roadblocks. My food is running out and my feet hurt and by day the sun burns and at night there are t…

Writing JavaScript and feeling you're surrounded by errors is pretty normal. It's a hastily-designed language. There's no getting away from the fact that everything is going to feel a little bit fragile. Just accept it and don't expect perfection.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#25

Post by mod » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 10:55 PM UTC

throwaway000020 wrote: post #6

mod wrote: post #4

Are you just learning? Use less-shiny stuff. Ditch the frameworks etc. Do the simplest thing.

I'm trying to build a real application and building real applications seems to need to sew together a whole bunch of real bits n pieces.

I would start with "real applications" that do very simple things.

Load in an instagram feed. Query some api and show results. Have one model and make a basic CRUD app around it (todo list?).

Do that several times (seriously).

Eventually, when you understand all the basic pieces, start tying two of those things together in one app. You'll learn new things.

As you go on farther, you'll learn the whole stack piecemeal, in digestible amounts.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#26

Post by sonabinu » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 10:55 PM UTC

You are going to get better as you learn more. You will still need to figure out how to set up things but you will have more tools in your tool kit to help you. Keep an open mind and remember you are learning as you struggle through things.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#27

Post by hammerandtongs » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 11:02 PM UTC

throwaway000020 wrote: post #21

davidbanham wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I build real applications out of real bits and pieces in a modern javascript stack. I do it for a living, have done for a while, and manage a team of people in a company that does it. Don't get hung up on tooling. Things like babel, webpack, ORMs, graphQL, gulp, react, redux, etc etc etc. They're all useful things that have a place in the world. If you try to grok all of them all at once you'll send yourself insane.…

The paradox is that IMO the simplest way forward is to use the most modern tools. The modern tools and languages are generally there to make things easier. The trouble is that you need to learn those tools and languages before you can get to do it the easy way. For example, I really can't afford to program with any JavaScript language except ES2015 - I just don't have time to try to understand all the weird idiosyncr…

Just get babel running without the webpack and modules gorp.

I thought it was all a mess too and wasted a few hours.

babel ./*js -s -w -d ../../target/

Move on to solving real problems with code.

I agree with your sentiment that you should try at least get es2015 going though.

Good luck.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#28

Post by guscost » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 11:06 PM UTC

What's currently in your JavaScript stack? I'm probably going to suggest getting rid of most of it if possible so that you can focus on your code. Here's a dirty secret: you probably don't need a JS build system or anything from ES2015+ if you don't feel like learning it yet[0]. If you're using React, you probably don't need to integrate any of the latest tech like Redux and tcomb-form and all those other super cool innovations. You can even get away with using Node modules in the old-fashioned "link to a script file" way[1]. Sure, someone can claim that each of those tools serves a purpose and can prevent a whole class of headaches that might happen. What they won't say is that trying to wrangle them all together right away is causing you a bigger headache than any of the others!

I'm working on an application that has about 15K lines of hand-prepared React/Flux JavaScript (well, TypeScript) and it is planned to scale up by maybe an order of magnitude eventually. It's built with ES5 and plain old revealing modules. I'm managing dependencies by hand. I'm not using Node or CommonJS modules at all. Heck, I'm not even using JSX yet because my version of Visual Studio doesn't have TSX (TypeScript+JSX) built in. Does this mean some headaches and extra labor? Sure! Do I feel like an imposter when reading about all this awesome fancy new stuff? Sometimes!

But the headaches are surprisingly minor and barely figure in most of the time. If/when these headaches get bigger (I suspect this will start in earnest when more front-end developers join the project), then I'll take another look at integrating a module loader, or a form generator, or an automagic React router, or a super-cool atomic state system like Redux. In case you're wondering the application works amazingly well and most of the time implementing even far-out crazy features has been easy and fun.

Finally, don't get too worried about making the "wrong" choices, and don't bail out for something newer when you hit your first roadblock. Most of the options you have available these days work great! The things we expect them to do are totally incredible, that's the only reason people are still proposing alternatives all the time.

[0]If you don't need to support older browsers, ES2015 is pretty easy to include. Otherwise if you need to use examples based on an ES2015+ version, just paste the code into the Babel REPL: https://babeljs.io/repl/

[1]You can get any bundled npm module here: https://wzrd.in/

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#29

Post by throwavay_java » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 11:09 PM UTC

You've already proven to yourself that the tooling that you are trying to use is costing you time, not saving you time like you want.

Just don't use them for this project. Just build the project using what you know now.

You can pick up that new tooling again at a later stage when you aren't so pressured to deliver something.

99% of being a successful programmer is coming back tomorrow, and getting a tiny bit more done, and learning a tiny bit more.

Re: Tell HN: I spend so much time solving problems I feel like giving up

#30

Post by jon_richards » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 11:14 PM UTC

rjknight wrote: post #11

I'm guessing a bit, but it sounds like you're suffering from trying to find the 'right' way to do something. I've been in situations where I've spent weeks or even months re-writing things because I read one more article about how some given approach is better than the one I was considering. Ultimately it doesn't matter enough to make a difference in the real world - your application will not be appreciably better be…

I find that no matter how many charts I see detailing why one thing is better than another, the decider is whether it has good tutorials written for it. If it doesn't have a good tutorial then the rest of the documentation isn't going to be much better and any actual problems you encounter won't have a stack overflow solving them.