A fool with a tool is still a fool … hating the tool does not change this … let’s save our breath …
Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
111–120 of 407 posts
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#112Yeah but React is really good. A lot of these articles[0] delve into an analogy that they twist into a complicated mess and say "hey look at how complicated frameworks are." But React isn't complicated. Most kinds of interaction, even for the smallest apps, are easier with React than with vanilla JS. I've never felt like I'm managing a factory factory factory when using React. And if I do, it's easy to peel back the…
Some inline on(event) attributes can be simpler to enhance basic MPA functionality, compared to pulling in React. I suppose it depends on the requirements and what one is most comfortable with.
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#113Simplicity is easy to mandate: "just use simple tools!". It's not always obvious when the finished product looks wonky and slanted and has to be retrofitted several times that the complexity was always there, in the world. The complexity in our tools is hopefully there to help with some complexity in the world. In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!".
> In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!". Or the actual senior engineer, as opposed to the mid-level engineer with a senior title. It's the ones in the middle that really love adding in the complexity - you have to relearn how to prune it back out.
Relevant Fred Brooks quote:
> An architect’s first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used “next time.”
> Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile."
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#114Framework-itis is a widespread disease. Developers and technologists weaponize frameworks to win arguments and feel vindicated that they are setting professional standards
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#115LOL the new factory factory factory is ChatGPT
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#116Related: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28920095 - Oct 2021 (296 comments) Why I hate frameworks (2005) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635142 - Oct 2016 (66 comments) Why I Hate Frameworks (2005) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203959 - March 2015 (63 comments) Why I Hate Frameworks (2005) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6542817 - Oct 2013 (37 comments) Wh…
There must be some metric of the resonance of a particular piece by looking at the number of reposts and distribution of comments amongst them (plus an analysis of the sentiment of the comments and characteristics of the thread trees in each separate posting). Just looking at this listing, without looking at the comments in each one, this seems to have a sustained resonance. Maybe I’m biased–it certainly resonates wi…
Its resonance may sustain because theres always people entering the field who are trying to build something, and either get caught up on a frameworks hypetrain or have fond enough memories using a given framework to build something quickly, and then getting burned trying to build something ambitious with a given framework because its opinionation proves to be too rigid one way or another, and a perpetual new influx of these sorts of people are happy to know it isn’t just them who hate (or at least were burned by) frameworks.
Or maybe thats just me.
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#117> "Really? I thought you just said that the Universal Hammer was the wave of the future."
This really demands that I link to the "Chef of the Future" Honeymooners episode, which I expect most readers of this site will not be familiar with and that I only know because my dad was a huge Honeymooners fan. It's apt to the blog post, as it turns out:
To provide some context for the scene, Ralph ("chef of the future") is a bus driver and he's always looking for the next get-rich-quick scheme. Ed ("chef of the past") is his neighbor who Ralph thinks he's smarter than and always enlists in his schemes. Ralph's schemes never work out for him. The scheme in this episode is to sell a kitchen multi-tool ("handy housewife helper"). Here the two of them are supposed to be presenting it to a live TV audience. Unfortunately, Ralph's stage freight and the fact that the multi-tool is worthless get the better of him.
Sometimes when I read about a new framework or other software contraption that's supposed to make my life easier, I wonder to myself: "but can it core a apple?"
> Everyone is using a general-purpose tool-building factory factory factory
So that would be like a 3D printer that can print 3D printers?
Personally, I think I own about 4 or 5 different kinds of hammers. And I'm just a homeowner who fixes things on weekends.
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#118I get the joke.
I would absolutely buy a tool factory factory. Tempering the steel alone would be worth it.
I’d even be interested in one more layer up, for access to car, rocket and chip factories.
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#119Yeah but React is really good. A lot of these articles[0] delve into an analogy that they twist into a complicated mess and say "hey look at how complicated frameworks are." But React isn't complicated. Most kinds of interaction, even for the smallest apps, are easier with React than with vanilla JS. I've never felt like I'm managing a factory factory factory when using React. And if I do, it's easy to peel back the…
React is arguably just a library though. NextJS is React as a framework
Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone needs to learn to do calculus by hand before advancing to the calculator. People picking up frameworks without fundamental understanding is a shockingly common fallacy.
That's the reason why CS classes and degrees exist. Or at least it should be. No company will pay you for several years just to learn complexity theory, write sorting algorithms, study schedulers, rewrite UNIX tools, understand hardware architectures, etc... They want you to be productive right away, and the shortest path is just to follow recipes with the latest framework. That's the point of education, universities…
This misses the mark. CS classes and degrees are akin to reading books about swinging hammers rather than just swinging the hammer.