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The abundance of JavaScript libraries

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Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#21

Post by brandonmenc »

lhnz wrote: post #20
georgemcbay wrote: post #2

Probably a controversial opinion to post here (not in that I think it is unique, but rather that I think there will be a divide in people who agree strongly and those who disagree strongly), but I view the JavaScript framework/library situation as a damning indictment of how terrible the language is. A constant churn of attempts to build a solid foundation upon a bed of leaky sand, each ultimately failing because no…

Can you define this leaky sand or is just bullshit? There is definitely a lot of churn, but slowly but surely you are seeing certain functional programming approaches winning out. And the language is progressing so much faster than similar dynamic languages like Python.

> the language is progressing so much faster than

Because it was a haphazard design.

A lot of the progress is just Javascript catching up to thoughtfully designed languages like Python. That's a good and necessary thing, but the fact remains.

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#22

Post by Silhouette »

chimeracoder wrote: post #16
ddw wrote: post #3

I still don't understand these "too many frameworks" articles. Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework? We're still allowed to use what we want, no matter how new or old it is, right?

> We're still allowed to use what we want, no matter how new or old it is, right? Yes, but that means you may be on your own to support it, which means extra up-front work as well as maintenance. For example, keep in mind that Javascript has changed execution environments and was also originally built without the concept of simply importing other JS files. So over the years, we have had various incompatible ways of p…

Not that I disagree with your basic point, but I also see no reason to assume that using something new/trendy like React or Angular 2 will be any better a year or two from now. It has always been the case that building around a framework trades off quick initial development and having reasonable defaults for a lot of common tasks against often making more specialised tasks harder and the risk that within the lifetime of your project the framework you rely on will no longer be supported and developed as actively as it was when you first adopted it.

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#23

Post by coldtea »

ddw wrote: post #13
coldtea wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework? Yes. Not all forcing is of the "gun pointed at you" kind. There's also: peer pressure, fads, media coverage, changing demands from employers, etc.

So like everything else in life then? For instance I just saw a TV commercial that said that Miller Lite is the best beer, but my past experience knows that that is not the case. Surely we can recognize hype and advertisements when we see them. The only valid excuse here is your employer, but in that case you should be able justify why using X is better than Y. If your non-technical manager insists that you use somet…

>So like everything else in life then? For instance I just saw a TV commercial that said that Miller Lite is the best beer, but my past experience knows that that is not the case. Surely we can recognize hype and advertisements when we see them.

Not really. That's some conscious processing that you did, and that we can do -- but only to certain degree. When we go and buy stuff, the advertisments we've seen affect us, not just in what brand we'll buy, but in the very basic act of buying something over nothing, and how much we'll buy of a product.

It's a whole, much studied, field with tons of tunable parameters, from the psychology of a tv, to the height of stuff in Costo's shelves, the colors and smells inside a supermarket (and lots of stuff for web shops too), down to the $x.99 kind of pricing.

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#24

Post by coldtea »

oldmanjay wrote: post #12
coldtea wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework? Yes. Not all forcing is of the "gun pointed at you" kind. There's also: peer pressure, fads, media coverage, changing demands from employers, etc.

Demands from employers may be considered forcing. The rest, not even close.

That's an ideology, that thinks that people are all 100% responsible for everything they do, can judge everything consciously, and cannot be manipulated to do stuff by things like advertising or peer pressure.

Sociological studies have proven time and again that this is not the case -- including in people that think that that's impossible for themselves (sort of like the Dunning–Kruger effect).

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#25

Post by wwweston »

ddw wrote: post #3

I still don't understand these "too many frameworks" articles. Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework? We're still allowed to use what we want, no matter how new or old it is, right?

Sure. You're allowed to use what you want... if you don't work with/for anyone who's sure that The Way Good Developers Do Things Now is DependencyInjectAllTheThings.js or MVVMVVM.js or Reflux.js.

I mean, you're passionate about keeping your skills updated, right?

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#26

Post by bpodgursky »

ddw wrote: post #3

I still don't understand these "too many frameworks" articles. Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework? We're still allowed to use what we want, no matter how new or old it is, right?

In Java or C++, there's a reasonable expectation that common popular libraries will keep getting updated for quite a while after you start using them... mindshare doesn't hemorrhage rapidly.

Not remotely true with JavaScript. Something which got 2k stars on gitub this year might be on the way out in a year, and you'll be stuck figuring out whether it still works with the new version of d3.js, or on the newest Chrome... and if it doesn't you have to either move on or fix it yourself.

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#27

Post by lugg »

bpodgursky wrote: post #26
ddw wrote: post #3

I still don't understand these "too many frameworks" articles. Is there some power out there that I don't know about that is forcing devs to use the latest framework? We're still allowed to use what we want, no matter how new or old it is, right?

In Java or C++, there's a reasonable expectation that common popular libraries will keep getting updated for quite a while after you start using them... mindshare doesn't hemorrhage rapidly. Not remotely true with JavaScript. Something which got 2k stars on gitub this year might be on the way out in a year, and you'll be stuck figuring out whether it still works with the new version of d3.js, or on the newest Chrome.…

Javascript developers need to make a transition like php and others have to module based apps, where you import just the libraries you need.

With things like require its not like it would be difficult to role your own framework like you can with php and composer (+all the symfony / laravel modules)

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#28

Post by lhnz »

brandonmenc wrote: post #21
lhnz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define this leaky sand or is just bullshit? There is definitely a lot of churn, but slowly but surely you are seeing certain functional programming approaches winning out. And the language is progressing so much faster than similar dynamic languages like Python.

> the language is progressing so much faster than Because it was a haphazard design. A lot of the progress is just Javascript catching up to thoughtfully designed languages like Python. That's a good and necessary thing, but the fact remains.

Python ground to a halt around the time Python 3 was released and last time I looked it was still barely progressing. Meanwhile JavaScript has ES6, ES7, TypeScript, npm, Ramda.js.

It's long past 'catching up'. It's a healthy ecosystem.

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#29

Post by dhritzkiv »

lugg wrote: post #27
bpodgursky wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Java or C++, there's a reasonable expectation that common popular libraries will keep getting updated for quite a while after you start using them... mindshare doesn't hemorrhage rapidly. Not remotely true with JavaScript. Something which got 2k stars on gitub this year might be on the way out in a year, and you'll be stuck figuring out whether it still works with the new version of d3.js, or on the newest Chrome.…

Javascript developers need to make a transition like php and others have to module based apps, where you import just the libraries you need. With things like require its not like it would be difficult to role your own framework like you can with php and composer (+all the symfony / laravel modules)

That's what using Browserify with CommonJS modules accomplishes, and has wide adoption. ES6 also specifies a module system, but it remains to be seen how that gets used or when it becomes the norm.

Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries

#30

Post by ForHackernews »

coldtea wrote: post #9
orangecat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree, and I say this having written mostly JavaScript professionally for the last several years. It's sad to think of the millions of engineer-hours spent trying to make JS usable for today's applications. IOW, JavaScript is going to be great next year. Just like it was going to have been each year for the past 10 years or so. ES6 might actually be ok, in the sense of "about as good as Python 2.3".

> IOW, JavaScript is going to be great next year. Just like it was going to have been each year for the past 10 years or so. Well, ES6 wasn't available "the past 10 years or so", whereas it will be next year, and recent 6-to-5 transpilers make it a backwards compatible option too. > ES6 might actually be ok, in the sense of "about as good as Python 2.3". Well, it's more ubiquitus that Python, more dynamic, more moder…

> Well, it's more...

None of these things are features of the language itself (except arguably "more modern", whatever that means). They're all byproducts of the fact that JS is the only language that runs in a browser. JavaScript has basically succeeded dramatically in spite of itself by piggybacking on the runaway success of the web/browsers.

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