What I'm amazed by is not the amount of javascript libraries (the more the better IMO) but the amount of under utilized ones. There are tons of awesome JS libraries, experiments and basically web toys out there without a real home.
The abundance of JavaScript libraries
31–40 of 49 posts
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#32Probably 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…
True. In JS land, someone is reinventing module management, object/class model, property bindings, event handling, async helpers, and FP helpers every day.
If they didn't many of the best libs wouldn't' exits today.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
>They're all byproducts of the fact that JS is the only language that runs in a browser.
So? The end result is the same, Javascript has these attributes and Python doesn't.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> JavaScript has ES6, ES7, TypeScript, npm, Ramda.js.
It's long past 'catching up'
Javascript is definitely making great progress, but npm thrown in as an example of how it's "long past catching up?" That's like, bare-minimum required functionality.
I'm not trying to attack, but when JS evangelists cite something like npm as a zap-pow feature, skeptics roll their eyes - especially when they've been using pip/rubygems/cpan for a decade or two.
Edit: I realize now you were probably citing npm more as evidence of JS having arrived with a healthy ecosystem (true) than as evidence it's leapfrogged others.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#35Earlier 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".
I was under the impression that all dynamic languages were converging around a similar set of core principles. - builtin type literal - closures and fp idioms - generators - asynchrony - comprehensions
closures are a horrible anitpatterb imo. abritrary anonymous state potentially from anywhere in your application - how can that be a deairable goal.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#36I 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.…
Yes and no. Libraries like jQuery and Underscore are often the basis of new frameworks and have been solid for a while now.
Like in other languages there's some wait and see to adoption. Going all in on a project that's been on GitHub a month no matter how many stars is foolish. JS devs have to make their decisions this way.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#37Probably 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…
I think we see so much churn in JavaScript because we've forced the weight of the entire client side web onto the back of a single language. JavaScript must satiate the technical needs of all organizations across every consumer facing device and operating system. Like all languages, JavaScript has its weaknesses, so its not surprising that we find JavaScript to be a less than optimal solution for certain types of problems, but since JavaScript is generally the only option available for scripting logic in the browser, it's pretty natural that we see an explosion of libraries and frameworks to compensate for the fact that the JavaScript hammer is the only tool that exists in the client web universe.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#38Earlier 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, It's called the Internet. People read articles about how X is the best. thing. evar. And this is perpetuated through many blog posts and, well, a lot of developers actually believe it.
If these JavaScript developers are so gullible to the newest thing it says more about them than the hype cycle. It's not just that the language sucks in some ways but that the users of it possess so little engineering rigor that they complain about TOO MANY options.
Let me just put here a notation about the vast majority of JS programmers that are not complaining about all the libraries/options. And there are whiny, bitchy people using other languages, too. It's easy to generalize, so I understand the impulse.
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#39Couple of learnings got crystallized for me from reading the post:
1) Learn to focus on the actual ideas and patterns behind languages, libraries, methodologies & concepts, instead of implementations
2) Observe how libraries, languages, methodologies & concepts get adopted & perhaps later rejected
Re: The abundance of JavaScript libraries
#40Given that browsers, Node, and JavaScript are all rapidly evolving, lots of churn in the library and framework space is what I'd expect to see happening, and I'd argue should happen. The problem is bigger than just the rate of churn. It's that at the same time there are lots of newcomers into the field and they don't have time to sit down and thoroughly learn the tech from the ground up. Instead, they're thrown into a JR development role and told to swim or sink. Many do swim and learn the tech in the process, but only by "weathering the storm" so to speak.