The State of Babel
babeljs.io
The State of Babel
1–10 of 109 posts
Re: The State of Babel
#2As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
Re: The State of Babel
#3As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
It's no worse than any other ecosystem. Modern Java development is just as prickly -- the only difference is the complexity is more established. JS is still very "wild-west" because the community is still making rapid progress towards an ideal environment.
Re: The State of Babel
#4As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
As a insider to FE development, I'm tired of hearing comments about JS fatigue and all the rest.
FE development is made of many moving parts and standards managed by different players. JS, for example, has to work on a variety of browsers, from obsolete to bleeding edge, from desktop to game consoles to mobile phones. Imagine if you had to write SQL that needs to run on ALL versions of ALL major databases, paired with code that needs to run on every possible JVM. It's unavoidable that it be like that. I'd rather have that than going back to the days of Flash where everything was closed source and in Macromedia's (or even worse, Adobe's) hands.
If it's not your thing, just keep clear of it (I don't mean OP specifically)
Re: The State of Babel
#5As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
It's no worse than any other ecosystem. Modern Java development is just as prickly -- the only difference is the complexity is more established. JS is still very "wild-west" because the community is still making rapid progress towards an ideal environment.
You may be right, but I'm not sure I totally agree. Maybe this is exactly what you meant, but I think the complexities are different. Java is inherently complex, I'll give you that, but in JS and FE development in general, it seems like the most basic building blocks are constantly being reinvented...large, open questions on basic stuff.
Re: The State of Babel
#6As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
Babel is doing a great service at making such complexities painless from a user's perspective.
Re: The State of Babel
#7As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
There was a recent Reddit thread entitled "Modern JS dev workflow makes me sad" ([0]). The complaint was reasonably well-written, and I wrote a lengthy response in return ([1]). I'll quote part of my comment here:
> Another thing to keep in mind is that those tools constitute an entire compiler toolchain. If I was trying to compile, say, a Qt application on a Linux system, half of the headers and libraries would have been preinstalled on the system, as well as GCC. The Qt develop package may or may not be preinstalled, but would also constitute a pretty hefty chunk of dependencies. With Javascript, you're basically pulling down an entire compiler+linker+libraries chain for each project, which is both good and bad.
I also gave a presentation a couple months ago that gives an overview of what some of these tools are and what problems they're trying to solve ([2]), and my React/Redux links list ([3]) has links to a number of other similar overview articles that can help clarify why these tools exist ([4]).
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/5fphiw/modern_j...
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/5fphiw/modern_j...
[2]: http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2016/10/presentation-modern...
[3]: https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links
[4]: https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links/blob/master...
Re: The State of Babel
#8As an outsider to FE development, when I see posts like this, I just shudder at the complexity of the ecosystem.
As a insider to FE development, I'm tired of hearing comments about JS fatigue and all the rest. FE development is made of many moving parts and standards managed by different players. JS, for example, has to work on a variety of browsers, from obsolete to bleeding edge, from desktop to game consoles to mobile phones. Imagine if you had to write SQL that needs to run on ALL versions of ALL major databases, paired wit…
> It's unavoidable that it'd be like that.
Why is that?
> If it's not your thing, just keep clear of it.
I don't currently do FE development, but like to keep abreast of changes. Why can't I make an observation about the apparent state of the ecosystem?
Also, I didn't mention anything about fatigue. You're projecting that.
Re: The State of Babel
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a insider to FE development, I'm tired of hearing comments about JS fatigue and all the rest. FE development is made of many moving parts and standards managed by different players. JS, for example, has to work on a variety of browsers, from obsolete to bleeding edge, from desktop to game consoles to mobile phones. Imagine if you had to write SQL that needs to run on ALL versions of ALL major databases, paired wit…
> It's unavoidable that it'd be like that. Why is that? > If it's not your thing, just keep clear of it. I don't currently do FE development, but like to keep abreast of changes. Why can't I make an observation about the apparent state of the ecosystem? Also, I didn't mention anything about fatigue. You're projecting that.
> If it's not your thing, just keep clear of it.
It wasn't directed specifically at you, it just read better than "if it's not ONE's thing, ..."
> Also, I didn't mention anything about fatigue. You're projecting that.
I didn't say you mentioned it. It is a common complaint and one I have seen far too often (here on HN a popular article on the subject was posted and reposted almost daily for a couple of weeks), so I made an observation which was spurred by your comment.
Re: The State of Babel
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a insider to FE development, I'm tired of hearing comments about JS fatigue and all the rest. FE development is made of many moving parts and standards managed by different players. JS, for example, has to work on a variety of browsers, from obsolete to bleeding edge, from desktop to game consoles to mobile phones. Imagine if you had to write SQL that needs to run on ALL versions of ALL major databases, paired wit…
> It's unavoidable that it'd be like that. Why is that? > If it's not your thing, just keep clear of it. I don't currently do FE development, but like to keep abreast of changes. Why can't I make an observation about the apparent state of the ecosystem? Also, I didn't mention anything about fatigue. You're projecting that.
>> It's unavoidable that it'd be like that.
>Why is that?
Because everything is open source and developed by different players at their own pace, and nobody can force anyone to do things a certain way. Plus everything evolves very quickly. Right now, for example, we need Babel because we are in the middle of transitioning from ES5 to ES6. Unlike, say, Python, we can't just take 6 years or more for that process.