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Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

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Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#21

Post by acemarke »

Zelphyr wrote: post #15
taesu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

npm hell, I assume it's still a thing?

Oh, yeah, it is. I used to love npm and then didn’t use it for several years. I’ve gone back to it lately and find myself screaming “what have you people done?!” on a regular basis now. And while we’re on the subject of package managers; do we really need so many? I know npm is terrible but it seems like everyone has decided to create their own now. I swear to god I had to use a package manager to install a package m…

There's only two primary package managers for Javascript that are in common use. (For point of comparison, Java and Python are in a similar situation: Maven and Gradle, pip / pipenv / poetry / pip-tools, etc.)

NPM is the package manager built by the NPM company. It's included with Node. Primary selling points: it's "official", and NPM has included the package auditing tech they purchased.

Yarn was created by a team from Facebook, at a time when NPM (v2/v3) was known for being slow. Currently developed by a somewhat broader group of contributors. Primary selling points: more consistent installation behavior, "offline mirror" installations.

Both tools install packages from the same servers run by the NPM company. The speeds are relatively similar these days, but that's at least partly because the competition pushed NPM to improve. And yes, Yarn is often installed via NPM, although you can install it other ways too.

Both teams are working on solutions to the `node_modules` size issue. NPM is building a new package manager called "Tink" from scratch. Yarn has come up with a technique dubbed "Plug 'n Play". Both look potentially interesting.

There's other package managers out there, but they're rarely used. For example, PNPM uses symlinks in each project to a global package cache, rather than installing a separate copy of a package for each project.

I happen to favor Yarn myself, largely because the offline mirror feature makes it easy to have consistent, fast installs in CI builds and across platforms [0].

[0] https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/07/practical-redux-pa...

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#23

Post by gwillz »

burnt_toast wrote: post #10
juddlyon wrote: post #4

This is a solid list, but front end dev has gotten a bit absurd. I feel like I need to install 86,000 dependencies via NPM to do something that server-side frameworks already figured out. I was following a simple Vue/Vuex tutorial the other day and my node_modules directory was 200MB+. Use yarn or npm to install XYZ.... What's the difference? Why do I have to google this as step 0? Why do you assume I know the intric…

It's frustrating how the go to solution for a problem tends to be to install another module. I agree it's not smart to keep reinventing the wheel, but when the solution takes less than 15 minutes to implement the recommended answer shouldn't be another module.

This is exactly my gripe with it all. There's always 10 different solutions to the same problem, often in 10 different packages.

Typically, I've seen it come about because often package creators have no interest in maintaining their invention. Their PR list is huge, all the tickets are just questions about "why isn't my PR merged?". So someone else creates an alternate or a fork, but so does everyone else.

I don't think anyone _wants_ a thousand packages, but there's a disconnect or miscommunication that's holding us all back.

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#24

Post by DanielBMarkham »

This is a good list. Also web development has went down some insane rathole that it needs to eventually get out of.

Let's look at it.

Typescript: Javascript, only with strong typing from OO you love

React: Use Javascript as if it were OO with IOC

Vue: Finally the web component architecture that the web itself is coming up with in another few years, only here today

CSS Grid: Miss tables yet?

GraphQL: Install your own generic data layer, because you need a generic data layer, right?

Don't get me wrong. These are all great techs. I use them daily and plan on learning more about them over the coming year. But I can't get past the feeling that web development is simply suffering from too many dang developers. Come back in 10-20 years and we'll end up having another C++ that's more of a CF than C++ is. I sure hope it doesn't turn out like that. Right now we've got a thousand ever-changing solutions looking for a problem.

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#25

Post by zmmmmm »

ng12 wrote: post #9
juddlyon wrote: post #4

This is a solid list, but front end dev has gotten a bit absurd. I feel like I need to install 86,000 dependencies via NPM to do something that server-side frameworks already figured out. I was following a simple Vue/Vuex tutorial the other day and my node_modules directory was 200MB+. Use yarn or npm to install XYZ.... What's the difference? Why do I have to google this as step 0? Why do you assume I know the intric…

What's a language/domain/framework that's _not_ like this? After spending a few weeks struggling with Bazel and Spring you'll not convince me Java is any better.

Actually, Java / JEE / Spring is the analogy I use when talking to people about the massive of complexity that is being created in the JavaScript ecosystem at the moment.

As you create it, new complexity looks "free" because the creator understands it perfectly (they are creating it!) and their nearest peers understand it too (they have the same immediate problem as the creator!). But it's a one way path - like navigating through a complex maze - going forward is easy and you come out the other size eventually, but nobody will ever be able to retrace those steps. In the longer term the complexity has an enormously high price, and eventually it collapses in on itself - new developers just won't use it.

Other ecosystems are complex but not at the same scale as those two IMHO, because different ecosystems seem to put a different price on complexity.

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#26

Post by lucidone »

I've been away from front end for about half a year while doing Node work on the backend. It's intimidating. There are too many choices, which correspond to too many libraries to learn, which are often half baked since the ecosystem is so fragmented. Everything is a special snowflake with its own idiosyncrasies and way of doing things.

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#27

Post by jenscow »

winstonewert wrote: post #20
burnt_toast wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating how the go to solution for a problem tends to be to install another module. I agree it's not smart to keep reinventing the wheel, but when the solution takes less than 15 minutes to implement the recommended answer shouldn't be another module.

why? I mean it takes far less than 15 minutes to install a module, so why should I implement it myself?

Like left-pad?

By adding more 3rd party dependencies (and theirs) you're increasing risk.

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#28

Post by kevinflo »

juddlyon wrote: post #4

This is a solid list, but front end dev has gotten a bit absurd. I feel like I need to install 86,000 dependencies via NPM to do something that server-side frameworks already figured out. I was following a simple Vue/Vuex tutorial the other day and my node_modules directory was 200MB+. Use yarn or npm to install XYZ.... What's the difference? Why do I have to google this as step 0? Why do you assume I know the intric…

This (or something like it) is always the top thread. I wish this was something the frontend community cheered about, not lamented. Those 200MB of node modules are developers ad-hoc cobbling together an alternative to xcode and android studio, except entirely modular and where we have complete control. Serious application development for the open web is hamstrung by limitations and definitely in an awkward growth phase, but it's marching towards a possible future of competing with native mobile apps and the two companies to which they're entirely beholden. To me, 200MB of tooling is not a sign of cruft, but of steady and imperfect progress.

Edit: and for the record, xcode is a 13.8GB install

Re: Front End Development Topics to Learn in 2019

#30

Post by djtriptych »

jenscow wrote: post #27
winstonewert wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why? I mean it takes far less than 15 minutes to install a module, so why should I implement it myself?

Like left-pad? By adding more 3rd party dependencies (and theirs) you're increasing risk.

You’re increasing risk by writing it yourself too.
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