211–220 of 391 posts
ITT: - Stockholm Syndrome: Programming is supposed to be needlessly hard for beginners. - Denial: What OP describes isn't a problem because I already learned how to avoid it. - Propagation: Try this even NEWER JavaScript library / paradigm / framework to solve all your problems (and totally not create a bunch of new ones). - JavaScript Bad: See this is why nobody should ever do front-end programming. - Acceptance: It…
- Over simplified summaries of complex viewpoints
The JS ecosystem suffers from a huge issue of duplication. There's multiple module systems, multiple ways to make a function, multiple ways to make a class, multiple ways to make a variable, multiple ways to loop over the array. Some of those exist in other languages as well but it's pretty bad in JS.
The problem is a language where you can do anything but where every day something has changed and the new something is the new cool. Now you have to ditch what you learned + the libraries to migrate to this. Or you have to use babel.
The module system fragmentation is the worst thing that can happen to a language. Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything remotely close to a bridge between CommonJS & ESM so both can coexist peacefully. If you turn towards one, node starts screaming about how ESM modules can't contain require and if you go the other way, well then CommonJS doesn't have import.
Aside from that JS is a great language. No, just kidding it's a mess.
This thread is also a good read: https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1522633160483385345 Shows that a lot of people, ESPECIALLY programmers, vastly overestimate the competence of the average person when it comes to whatever they are an expert at. You may think that this person is silly - but that is tainted by your past experience of already knowing it warping what you think the baseline average knowledge level is…
> I don't wanna learn how programming building blocks work as I use them to build a lil rando pile, I want to learn how they work as I use them to build the actual house I want. If what I'm learning isn't connected to a payoff, then I lose the stamina to wade through the problems.
As a teacher, this resonates
Module resolution is quite a mess in JS at the moment. With the steady move to ESM, hopefully things will get better soon. In this transition period, it's painful. Even for those that deal with JS everyday, most don't actually understand the intricacies of CommonJS & ESM.
ESM is the biggest waste of time in the JS ecosystem. People are trying to move thing to ESM before it's even in a stable enough state. Mixing ESM and commonjs is a PITA. I've been a JS-mostly dev since 2013, and I've had enough of ESM ideologues. See https://github.com/sindresorhus/meta/discussions/15 for just ONE example of this mess. I don't know why it's become this ideological war where people are 'testing the w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What Aella wants to do is something pretty simple, and it's frustratinc that this is so hard. It's not that hard. Doing it like a Real Data Scientist is hard, but also completely unnecessary for a beginner non-programmer. That doesn't stop well-meaning folks from advising that approach (install pandas, Jupyter, anaconda, etc.) and overwhelming people. The Python standard library is batteries included. IDLE exists.
I think the problem is that there are so many options, some more accessible to newcomers, some less. For example, I think Thonny is a nice entry level Python "GUI" But it's really hard to find what to start with from a google search.
And I think users tend to grow out of entry-level tools pretty quickly so it's hard for any one option to become universal.
> But it's really hard to find what to start with from a google search.
That's true, but I think it has a lot more to do with the quality of educational material for beginners than the simplicity or complexity of available tools.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the thing with every tech ever, first you need to know (way to many) intricacies, and then the tools evolve and you don't need anymore... I remember having to fight sound cards and modems on linux once, or (slightly more recent) days of having to manually install and set up every single service for local dev environment, which basically required a linux administrator level of skills from a developer, plus a lot…
> It's the thing with every tech ever, first you need to know (way to many) intricacies, and then the tools evolve and you don't need anymore In an ideal world, sure. In the world of software dev tools, not always. We've regressed from Delphi and Visual Basic that allowed anyone with some data to pop up an application quickly to use that data, to the current state, which every popular language in industry (and even s…
Sure it's not the same as it was with Delphi or VB that would install (and in case of VB also build into exe) everything you might ever need, but e.g. it's still a lot simpler than VC++ used to be back then - just figuring out all headers you need to include to compile an empty app was a horror - so it was definitely not like everything was "simple stuff" friendly back then. And doing web dev in those early days was far more complicated to setup...
Nowadays IME once you figure out how to setup the tool chain - and there's a plenty of boilerplates and starter kits for that - you more or less just rinse and repeat that every nest time. Sure sometimes package managers go berserk on you, but otherwise my experience is that - once you've figured it out - it all just magically works... but it does take some initial effort and time to figure it out properly.
And if it's really simple stuff that I need to finish quickly, I just skip the whole package managers/ build tools deal, and write a script, include and link what I need manually and run it from CLI/browser just like it's 1998 :P
This thread is also a good read: https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1522633160483385345 Shows that a lot of people, ESPECIALLY programmers, vastly overestimate the competence of the average person when it comes to whatever they are an expert at. You may think that this person is silly - but that is tainted by your past experience of already knowing it warping what you think the baseline average knowledge level is…
Was going to edit this in but it quickly turned into a related rant about the state of things: if you don't want that, scroll past. The real problem is that there's no more room for the technological "middle class". We've gotten to the point where you cannot be SLIGHTLY interested in computers, want to make a quick app for yourself, or make something small to share with the world. You either have to have no interest…
Example: https://github.com/jwagemann/era5_in_gee#workflow-overview
I always go into these things hoping the outsider will be an Amish farmer or professional welder, but it always turns out to be just another programmer.
in what scenario an amish farmer, a professional welder, or, well, anything but a programmer, would know anything about this "javascript" thing?