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Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

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Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is true, as I grew more experienced I’m very careful with the dependencies I add to a project. I don’t work with React Native but I hear horror stories of how the hundreds of dependencies force you to either stick to the old versions of stuff or keep fixing or rewriting things that used to work. Seems totally unsuitable for a side project you want minimal maintenance over time.

Create react app, with all node_modules included, is well over 200MB of garbage OSS libraries. That’s insane for a hello world.

That’s like saying a pencil weighs 1000kg because the machine that makes them does.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#222
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see a lot of people online advising against taking CS degrees (in europe, where it's not economically impossible to study). They argue that bootcamps and quick courses are enough, or that chatgpt exists now so programming is a dead profession. I disagree, I think I've had a lot of use from having had education… but I might be biased. But I've had to explain things occasionally.

I've done both, degree first, then years later bootcamp, when I needed to update my skills. I liked both. IMO, people should choose what suits their needs best.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#223
Nice to the the cycle is alive and well.

1. Start out loving frameworks for how easy it is

2. Convince yourself frameworks are the devil and you can do without, spend a lot of time rolling your own and learning a shit ton about the nitty gritty.

3. Eventually realize it's a fruitless waste and you'd rather spend your time working on more important things.

4. Either you go on to create the next big thing or you go back to using frameworks but smarter this time around (in my experience piecemeal or better able to extend).

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#224
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see a lot of people online advising against taking CS degrees (in europe, where it's not economically impossible to study). They argue that bootcamps and quick courses are enough, or that chatgpt exists now so programming is a dead profession. I disagree, I think I've had a lot of use from having had education… but I might be biased. But I've had to explain things occasionally.

The problem is that bootcamps were incentivised to churn out graduates within 3 months to get ISAs.

This contributed to a junior coder market where people are not ready.

I only found a handful of resources out there which are really preparing everyone for a long journey.

Long gone are the promises of a $500k job after 3 months of studying...

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#225
This is a great article, and I pretty much agree with everything in it.

However, I want to comment on a bit of the discussion about hammers and carpenters in the comments on HN.

Let me put this briefly - carpenters learn about wood way more than they learn about tools. Knowing how to cut wood, bend wood, fasten wood, use wood to hold things up, make wood look nice, etc. Those are things carpenters do and learn about. The tools are secondary.

Also, one final note - carpenters don’t really use ball peen hammers - those are for metalworking. Carpenters use claw hammers because the claw removes nails.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#226
Any non-toy web service development, I disagree. HTTP is great except for the fact that as a protocol it carries no built-in mechanism for introspection on the services/types offered by an API. Openapi addressed this. But building an openapi spec by hand is moronic. Frameworks like fastapi or nestjs (forgive me if im forgetting your favorite) will generate an openapi spec. That spec can be used to autogenerate type safe clients, which solve the problem of HTTP not having discoverability or type safety.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

factory to build a factory I see . Most including the standard docs would recommend using create-react-app unless you really know what you are doing

Part of that is almost certainly because it is far, far easier to explain how to get started with create-react-app then it would be to explain the various alternative approaches, especially considering how inexperienced on average the kind of people who are looking up how to set up a react project must be (professional developers needing the information for their actual work probably constitute a small minority), eve…

What's hard to explain about “add this tag to your HTML, open a new JavaScript file and start writing”?

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I like to explain the difference between the two approaches — and therefore the two educational requirements — you are outlining here is the difference between being a software developer and a software architect. A software developer is focused on developing a certain feature or fixing a certain bug within the context of an architecture that's already determined, rarely making decisions about how to structure…

does what you’re making matter to people or not? It’s like that no matter what you’re doing. Y’all can sit around here and discuss, “what is a software architect” all you want.

Reminds me of the architect we have at work.

By the time he was done formalizing what needs to be done and philosophizing about the best approach (while actively trying to prevent the engineers from hacking away), the programmers and hardware engineers delivered a production prototype that works just fine and that people want to buy.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#229
post #94

Earlier 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…

"No company will pay you for several years just to learn"

No, they never did. But to stay with the hammer metapher - young carpenters would indeed learn on the job, how to use a hammer and all the other tools. But they would not get the same pay (or even no pay and just food and housing).

In general it used to be way more common, that companies invested in peoples learning, expecting payoff much later. But with high mobility nowdays, they seldom think it is worth it anymore. You teach and then they thank you and move on.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#230
post #48

I don't get it. I assume the author is trying to make it sound absurd that you would need all these layers of factories to build a simple spice rack and, by analogy, that frameworks are also absurd. But if you were building spice racks at scale, of course you would build them in a factory! And you'd use machinery made in other factories. And those factories would have tools and machines made in yet other factories. T…

I think you might actually be surprised at the level of non-sophistication of most of these factories. Especially for the "made in China" items, but even in the US. My friend works at Masterbrand, a HUGE houseware manufacturer and it is essentially a massive workshop of people using the most basic tools within reason for the job. This is specifically by design because they found that the more advanced tools required…

Indeed, but they don't just do basic items. They make huge industrial products the same way. See this video for example where they melt down steel scrap in arc furnaces covering their faces with just cloth and pour those huge steel gears.... https://youtu.be/2lrGQbMEHaQ
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