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Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

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Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#41

Post by piotrkaminski »

douche wrote: post #22
asimuvPR wrote: post #18

The only way we are going to build better tools is to keep building them. Complaining about the sort of cambrian explosion going on right now on web development is short sighted. Ideas need to be discovered, explored and improved. Everything needs to be challenged. This is unknown territory in many ways. It does get a little hectic and tiring at times but that's the price we pay.

The tools need to be better than what came before, rather than just different . So far I've dealt with grunt, then gulp, then webpack. None of these are appreciably better than make, they are just different and newer...

On the contrary: when looking for a global maximum you will almost certainly have to pass through local minima, so different _is_ good in this case.

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#43

Post by vog »

usgroup wrote: post #24
dperfect wrote: post #13

The problem really isn't a function of the number of tools and frameworks in existence, but rather in the distribution of popularity among them. Each ecosystem around a set of technologies essentially has its own "Herfindahl index"[1] of sorts. For example, the Ruby ecosystem's index might be fairly high, simply because Rails is so dominant (to the point where Ruby and Rails are often conflated by outsiders). On the…

I think it's a JS problem with trends around other languages tending moreso to a single eco-system. Regarding JS frameworks, I think the barrier to entry is still low, and given the suffering involved for any given tool-chain, I'd imagine the temptation to roll ones own is high. Finally, JS framework fates are tethered to that of the browser. The latter changes frequently, so the former ends up in a refactoring perma…

> Finally, JS framework fates are tethered to that of the browser. The latter changes frequently, so the former ends up in a refactoring perma-loop.

Could you elaborate on that? What kind of browser changes are happening so often and are so deep that frameworks need to be refactored every time? (My experience is quite the opposite.)

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#44

Post by jaggederest »

josephg wrote: post #12
jaggederest wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that there are accepted standards for tooling for carpentry. Sure, there are 900 different kinds of tools, but they all solve a minimal subset of measuring, cutting, drilling, holding, joining, and smoothing. There's no equivalent of the basic problems of carpentry in the profusion of javascript libraries. Many of the libraries written in the last year solve problems created by other librarie…

Right, which we need to solve through better ways of curating projects as a community. Browsing through 20 different options in npm trying to guess which ones are good is not a scalable way to build software. The long term answer isn't to have fewer options or barriers to entry for new frameworks. The right solution is to make better ways to browse and select between all the options we have available. Can we curate l…

> The right solution is to make better ways to browse and select between all the options we have available.

I think you're missing the point. The problem is not "which library is best at x y and z", the problem is that nobody agrees on what X, Y, and Z are.

It's a definitional problem, not a curation problem. Curation is easy once you have a yardstick to measure things with (pun intended).

Again dropping back to the metaphor of woodworking, one can clearly evaluate the results of using any given tool against a thousand years of physical history - no such comparison is possible with current libraries, especially in the rat's nest of javascript, and that's fundamentally the issue.

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#46

Post by sorokod »

electic wrote: post #27
dperfect wrote: post #13

The problem really isn't a function of the number of tools and frameworks in existence, but rather in the distribution of popularity among them. Each ecosystem around a set of technologies essentially has its own "Herfindahl index"[1] of sorts. For example, the Ruby ecosystem's index might be fairly high, simply because Rails is so dominant (to the point where Ruby and Rails are often conflated by outsiders). On the…

You can spin it this way if you like. However, a big part of this framework and Tool epidemic is ego. The trick is to take a dominant framework or tool, find a deficiency, and then rewrite it again with that deficiency fixed. Why? Because if it takes off, your career takes of. What developers should really do is contribute and make the existing projects better. Everyone will thank you for it.

Are you saying that JS devs are different from Ruby devs in this regard?

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#47

Post by lucaspiller »

59nadir wrote: post #21
michaelchisari wrote: post #8

For side projects, it can be a little daunting, but ultimately represents a healthy eco-system. But the issue for me is how employers handles it. No, I don't know Angular. But I have used Backbone, Ember & React. So do you really need an Angular expert, especially when Angular is only a few years old and is completely changing in Angular 2? Should employers insist on extensive trade knowledge in a specific framework,…

I think the real markers should be that a person is not afraid of broadening their views. Usually, the advice for hiring for Erlang, as an example, is not to hire people that know Erlang, but focus on hiring good people (who are capable of learning beyond your average C-like) and then teach them Erlang. It's a small and very easily learned language, for sure, but learning it is certainly a bigger undertaking than lea…

I've been trying to learn Angular2 recently, maybe I'm not a good developer (but I faired ok with Erlang :D), but it really is such a struggle. Documentation is lacking, and what is available is often wrong or outdated. It doesn't help that half the tools and libraries are still in 'beta' and breaking changes are seen as a way of life.

This post really sums up my experience, and I've done plenty of Javascript before (I just haven't kept on top of client side frameworks):

https://hackernoon.com/why-learning-angular-2-was-excruciati...

If I were to hire someone to work with me, I would try and find someone who has experience with Angular2. Angular2 vs JavaScript are effectively different technologies compared to Ruby vs Rails.

I'd actually say for someone completely new (e.g. locked in a basement doing C or Java for the last 20 years), learning Erlang would be far easier than learning modern JavaScript and Angular2.

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#48

Post by amelius »

joelhooks wrote: post #40

I've been building UIs for 20 years, and the tools we have now are the best I've ever had the pleasure to work with. It's more fun now than ever. More please.

Except now we have to target 3 different mobile platforms, the web, and possibly 3 different native desktop environments.

Where is the progress in that?

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#49

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

douche wrote: post #22
asimuvPR wrote: post #18

The only way we are going to build better tools is to keep building them. Complaining about the sort of cambrian explosion going on right now on web development is short sighted. Ideas need to be discovered, explored and improved. Everything needs to be challenged. This is unknown territory in many ways. It does get a little hectic and tiring at times but that's the price we pay.

The tools need to be better than what came before, rather than just different . So far I've dealt with grunt, then gulp, then webpack. None of these are appreciably better than make, they are just different and newer...

I disagree. With webpack you declare all dependencies are resolved and declared with code, instead of a separate manifest. It's a big improvement over gulp and grunt.

I don't know why people compare gulp and grunt with webpack, they solve different problems.

Re: Too Many Tools and Frameworks (2015)

#50

Post by noselasd »

reubano wrote: post #19
bungle wrote: post #7

Light bulbs have not improved, they have become worse, and are designed to fail.

The parent is right after all. Just do a search for "the 100 yr light bulb".

"planned obsolescence" for lightbulbs is not a recent thing though; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
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