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The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

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Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#11

Post by lettergram »

Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

Indeed! In fact, after I spent time using react and angular for two separate products, I actually switched back to mostly rolling my own JQuery (usually).

It just works, and takes up much less of my mindshare than trying to learn various frameworks every time I roll a new site (which incidentally is every 3 - 6 months). There is always more support for it (with all the questions being answered), and the API never changes. I actually develop faster, although typically I’m using web frameworks with templating backends - such as Rails (Ruby), Django (Python), Flask (Python), and Revel (Go)

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#12

Post by codingdave »

Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

On the same note, the older frameworks solved older problems. jQuery was the killer framework because it handled browser compatibility back in a time when people not only needed to support IE8, but IE6, and few companies felt comfortable telling people to just update their browser. Well, those days are past, so that problem is no longer a reason to choose a framework, and when you take that out of the picture, jQuery just isn't so needed.

The same path is likely on all frameworks - they were designed to solve specific use cases, and as the entire industry matures, different solutions will embed themselves in the industry in different ways, reducing the raison d'etre for each framework, over time.

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#13

Post by itcmcgrath »

Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

"Of course there's going to be less questions"

Yet there are counter examples that show that can't be the complete story: http://sotagtrends.com/?tags=[jquery,python]&relative=false

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#14

Post by itcmcgrath »

iambateman wrote: post #8
Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

This intuitively makes sense, but I'd like to see some control data. Has the volume of PHP questions (for example) fluctuated much over time?

http://sotagtrends.com/?tags=[jquery,python]&relative=false

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#15

Post by _ea1k »

nicoburns wrote: post #5
Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

Yep! Same for React. It has a much smaller API surface area than Angular (and goes wrong it mysterious ways less often!), so fewer people will be asking questions about it. From my perspective, it appears that React is still very much in ascendancy.

The chart seemed to show React to be growing very quickly as well.

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#17

Post by jamra »

lettergram wrote: post #11
Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

Indeed! In fact, after I spent time using react and angular for two separate products, I actually switched back to mostly rolling my own JQuery (usually). It just works, and takes up much less of my mindshare than trying to learn various frameworks every time I roll a new site (which incidentally is every 3 - 6 months). There is always more support for it (with all the questions being answered), and the API never cha…

I did that on a product as well. It went pretty well. The issue is with more complicated UI. The more complicated it is, the faster JQuery breaks down. That being said, it's better to have a bit of a spaghetti JQuery than to try and retrain unwilling programmers in Angular.

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#19

Post by dmitriid »

itcmcgrath wrote: post #13
Kajayacht wrote: post #2

One of the things I don't think it accounts for in talking about the downfall of something like jQuery is that as time goes on, the questions have already been asked. So of course there's going to be less questions asked about jQuery in 2017 versus 2009, because if I need to figure out how to select elements based on an attribute rather than a class or id, it's already there.

"Of course there's going to be less questions" Yet there are counter examples that show that can't be the complete story: http://sotagtrends.com/?tags=[jquery,python]&relative=false

You could argue that jQuery covers handling (a part of) DOM APIs which are updated only rarely.

Once you know what $().append().on().trigger() does, there's not that much left to know about jQuery. And most everything can be understood from docs.

Python, however, is a continuously evolving language with an ever expanding number of libraries and areas of application.

Re: The Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks

#20

Post by cies »

Remember that Merb was merged into Rails? That's a community converging, that's what brought Ruby to the point that it is recruiter-speak synonymous to Rails.

In the JS world: not so much. But that prolly has many reasons. I can think of: the language changing rapidly, the community not very "close", people coming to JS from widely different places, and the fact that a JS framework can span either the FE or the BE or both!

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