The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
1–10 of 94 posts
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#2Yeah for my new startup I decided to avoid javascript except where its absolutely necessary and then use css plus lots of server side python including template generation and system and database management. I was using spa+soa with node and angular, react and vue for years but decided to use django especially because it has a great security track record and changes very slowly and doesn't require tons of extra libraries outside of django.
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#3This is a rant I can appreciate. Two subjective takes on the same subject:
1) As JavaScript became ascendant, it seems like developers lost their fear of dependencies, for some reason I don't understand. Dependencies came to be seen as "time saved" rather than "something out of your control that can hurt you."
2) When dependencies don't fit together, things fail in a way that makes it look as if the code is simply wrong. Yet everyone working in the environment ends up conditioned to run to google with the combination of (circumstances, error string) to find someone who has figured out what the actual dependency issue is. It's automatic behavior. At some point it would make sense to include automated googling in the CI pipeline just to add some necessary information to the errors.
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#4Yeah for my new startup I decided to avoid javascript except where its absolutely necessary and then use css plus lots of server side python including template generation and system and database management. I was using spa+soa with node and angular, react and vue for years but decided to use django especially because it has a great security track record and changes very slowly and doesn't require tons of extra librar…
This is a great strategy. Kudos to Django for simplicity and stability!
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#5“Just one dependency”. The author makes it sound like this is trivial because they have a single dependency therefore it should Just Work™. Author should have included how many node modules were installed for the one dependency.
The closing statements are just mind blowing. To say vue/js don’t bother you but continue to shit on everything is a tired argument. Even bringing up PHP! What are you actually doing to make it better or are you just piling on to the same shit we’ve all been saying for at least 5 years?
Be the change you want to see, accept the bull shit, or just don’t use it. No one forced you to write a vue app.
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#6I'm embarrassed to admit that for web development, I'm afraid to try frameworks like React/Vue/Angular as well as package managers like NPM/Yarn. So I settled on writing raw (X)HTML code and using only vanilla JavaScript APIs provided by the browser (ECMAScript standard library, DOM, multimedia, etc.).
Because of this, I can't bang out complicated software quickly and easily like the stereotypical front-end developer. In exchange, the techniques that I learn essentially don't go out of date and don't randomly break. I settled for only applying what I understand.
I made an exception for TypeScript; I acknowledge the compiler is enormously complicated and requires Node.js to run. But static type checking has saved me from my own silly mistakes very often. And if armageddon ever comes, I can always strip out the annotations from existing TypeScript code and continue with plain JavaScript.
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#7This is a rant I can appreciate. Two subjective takes on the same subject: 1) As JavaScript became ascendant, it seems like developers lost their fear of dependencies, for some reason I don't understand. Dependencies came to be seen as "time saved" rather than "something out of your control that can hurt you." 2) When dependencies don't fit together, things fail in a way that makes it look as if the code is simply wr…
> for some reason I don't understand
Fear of writing original code. There is less perceived risk (actual risk is slightly increased) if you can defer blame.
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#8Out of curiosity what is the best counter argument to the general thesis, eg either what positives come entangled in the hot mess or reasons it’s not a hot mess?
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#9This is a rant I can appreciate. Two subjective takes on the same subject: 1) As JavaScript became ascendant, it seems like developers lost their fear of dependencies, for some reason I don't understand. Dependencies came to be seen as "time saved" rather than "something out of your control that can hurt you." 2) When dependencies don't fit together, things fail in a way that makes it look as if the code is simply wr…
I installed ESLint into a new project and my package.lock file expanded to 3000 lines. I understand what problem it was trying to solve but the sheer inelegance of it sort of gives everything a jank feel, like you have no idea what’s running.
Or perhaps it’s more that it’s exposing a bunch of things that are hidden or tucked in standard libraries in other languages.
Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is a hot mess and so is software development
#10Yeah for my new startup I decided to avoid javascript except where its absolutely necessary and then use css plus lots of server side python including template generation and system and database management. I was using spa+soa with node and angular, react and vue for years but decided to use django especially because it has a great security track record and changes very slowly and doesn't require tons of extra librar…
I'm starting to do this with Elixir, even though I used to have a very favorable opinion of React on the front end. When you have a small, focused ecosystem when dependencies often have few or no upstream dependencies, things just work better.
The story around testing in my preferred stack is miles better than anything in JS land, and runs in parallel. One of the apps I work on has thousands of tests and the test run is under 4 minutes for all of them. They almost never break when dependencies are upgraded. It's really nice.