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JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

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Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#111

Post by dceddia »

jonny_eh wrote: post #86
gtsteve wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is React still "in"? I thought the recent BSD+Patents furore had made it uncool, but perhaps this doesn't bother developers as much as I originally thought.

A lot of that was overblown, I haven't seen a change in sentiment in the projects I work on. It's not like the patents clause was new, it was just Apache Foundation deciding to ban it that way. So as long as you're not working on an Apache project, you're unaffected.

Also, WordPress is dumping React - https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/

But I agree, I do not think everyone is jumping ship to Vue (or whatever) over the license.

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#112

Post by PopsiclePete »

botskonet wrote: post #101
morgancmartin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. We are using Angular 1.x at my day job and my team and I are feeling the pain. Manual DOM manipulation compared to React's virtual DOM feels like what it must have used to feel like comparing jQuery to Angular 1. Perhaps frameworks don't rust in the sense that they deteriorate in terms of capabilities over time. But that doesn't mean that they don't become obsolete. Especially when you're building…

We're using Angular 1 too, chosen just over two years ago. The two-way binding/digest nature has really become our enemy. Everything we write has to account for digests and we've wound up with some terribly ugly code to account for digest problems. Angular 1 is great for hobbyists and it makes implementing simple forms easy but when you use it for an enterprise app, it hurts. Our app is still vastly better than decad…

>We're using Angular 1 too, chosen just over two years ago.

Good god. You chose Angular 1 two years ago? As in 2015? When its horrific shortcomings were already known and the Angular devs were working on Angular 2.x?

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#113

Post by shados »

Prefinem wrote: post #24
shados wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Honestly at this point I'll take boring. I'd welcome boring. People really need to stop upgrading 0.1 second after something comes out. Take the Java world. You can have a lot of criticism for the language or the platform, but the reality is people get shit done without upgrading right away. It's not even part of the culture. This allows people to master the platform and tools. In the JS world, there's no mas…

The issue is leadership. If someone high enough forces standardization, then you are good to go. Just like the old days of only being an 'X' language shop and using only 'Y' framework. I think the irony is that all the freedom I used to see frontend people using is coming back to bite them and their mindset is slowly moving towards what backend people have been doing for a long time.

The issue is leadership, you're right. But it's not leadership at an individual company level. It's at a community level.

Right now, if you're in a tech hub and you tell FE people "Sorry, we're standardizing on and we're gonna hold off on major release upgrades without a good reason", you're gonna lose some people and have trouble hiring or deal with constant internal complains. Why? Because their buddies in aren't dealing with that restriction.

You need some serious charisma to tell people you're sticking with last year's tech and get away with it. If you're in an environment where you can do that AND still hire fast enough to grow, consider yourself lucky and hope your boss never quits :)

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#114

Post by Prefinem »

shados wrote: post #113
Prefinem wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is leadership. If someone high enough forces standardization, then you are good to go. Just like the old days of only being an 'X' language shop and using only 'Y' framework. I think the irony is that all the freedom I used to see frontend people using is coming back to bite them and their mindset is slowly moving towards what backend people have been doing for a long time.

The issue is leadership, you're right. But it's not leadership at an individual company level. It's at a community level. Right now, if you're in a tech hub and you tell FE people "Sorry, we're standardizing on and we're gonna hold off on major release upgrades without a good reason", you're gonna lose some people and have trouble hiring or deal with constant internal complains. Why? Because their buddies in aren't d…

True. In the Midwest I guess we are a little more conservative. I have hit the latest and greatest fatigue and am happy to stabilize on something for day to day work. If I want to try something new, I can start a side project.

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#115

Post by reaperducer »

sametmax wrote: post #13

But JS dev has never been fun. Web dev is fun because the browser is a freaking awesome plateform. However, it is _despite_ of JS. There's not a single characteristic of this language that makes it better than any other mainstream high level language out there. We use it because we have no reasonable alternative on the browser. It has always been a pain to use, requiring: - avoiding part of the language that is badly…

Dare we dream of a world where Javascript goes the way of Flash.

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#116

Post by ummonk »

OtterCoder wrote: post #57
cormacrelf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metaphor doesn't help with the default thinking behind a large proportion of engineering decisions. It goes like this: This is hard => I want to do one or two slightly different things => Building custom things feels like valuable work => Use the CNC machine! This is exactly the thinking that created the Juicero[1] (which actually uses many CNC parts), and we all make fun of them even though the same process is…

But Angular isn't simply "a router/nav, a wrapper around XHR/an API, some rendering to HTML, and some buttons to do things". That's JQuery you're describing. Angular determines the shape of the extensions you can build for it, and general, standard components don't fit its philosophy out of the box. With the cnc, you can pick parts and modules from a much bigger pool, then cut your enclosure to match. A widgetized, s…

It will be harder if the parts and modules use ad-hoc specifications instead of adhering to some common framework (e.g. 5v or 3.3v power levels, imperial or metric sizing for drive axles, mounting screws, etc.).

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#117

Post by atoko »

moron4hire wrote: post #55

I think Framework-itis is a result of front-end developers—who are often junior developers who may not even have CS degrees—inculcating the false message that they are not "real" developers. As an industry, we have treated front-end development work as entry-level, occasionally even frivolous work, as it grew organically out of the left-over work that systems developers gave to the designers. Developing a framework d…

You're drawing from quite a lot of assumptions. Consider that until recently, "front-end" work was done mostly on the server.

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#118

Post by moron4hire »

atoko wrote: post #117
moron4hire wrote: post #55

I think Framework-itis is a result of front-end developers—who are often junior developers who may not even have CS degrees—inculcating the false message that they are not "real" developers. As an industry, we have treated front-end development work as entry-level, occasionally even frivolous work, as it grew organically out of the left-over work that systems developers gave to the designers. Developing a framework d…

You're drawing from quite a lot of assumptions. Consider that until recently, "front-end" work was done mostly on the server.

I think I know what the history of web dev for the last 20 years has been, considering I've lived and worked through it. Your comment doesn't change anything. There has always been a client-side component of web apps. While in modern times it has become more richly interactive and complex, it's pretty clear the people who work on it have not received a similar upgrade in respect.

Re: JavaScript development is not fun for me anymore

#119

Post by watwut »

shangxiao wrote: post #75
gtsteve wrote: post #7

I don't think there's that big a problem with how many front-end frameworks there are, and the pace of development. I think the problem is people who feel they have to use the latest and greatest feature and they have to know all the frameworks. At my company we picked a stack and stuck with it. That happened to be React and Redux. I hear Angular 2 and Vue are really great frameworks but I feel under no pressure to r…

At my old workplace we had a few legacy Meteor projects that absolutely _nobody_ wanted to maintain. In addition to that we could not hire anyone who was both suitably qualified and excited enough to work on Meteor. We still had to maintain them though as the clients had no money to what would effectively revamp the entire stack to something a lot more maintainable. Working with a (relatively) unpopular & outdated fr…

Do you state in you job ads that it is meteor position? Some self selection of applicants might help - you don't need someone super excited, just someone responsible and willing to do that work. At least, that is how our company found long term people for unpopular positions. Turned out they exists, just are hidden and don't know your job is match.

(I personally don't mind working with less popular tech part of time as long as I also work with something that sounds good in CV.)

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