Ask HN: Is all programming constantly changing or just front-end JavaScript?

We have lots of js in our project, and it's mostly the same js as when I first learned it in early 2000s. No ES6, because it's completely unsupported in Android Browser and IE. Why bother with transpiling for just shorter syntax for functions? We had Sprockets and I'm not sure if there's adequate transpiling of ES6 for it. So, browsers are stuck with ES5 forever, does that mean that JS is evolving fast? And ES6 itself is ancient, it was released when iOS still had skeuomorphic UI.

On the other hand, while playing with IoT project I had to use C++ recently, and it feels like entirely different language than 10 years ago. Even Ruby had syntax changes in last few years, and lots of small standard library changes.

Maybe fashion and "best practices" in js world change frequently, but not the language itself. Featurewise it's still on the level of Python 2.2.

That's (IMO) due to a handful of reasons. But three standout in particular...

1) The state of Javascript's standard library is getting better but still pretty bad. So people continually reinvent new ones.

2) Every company with a frontend (see: Every Company) has to work with Javascript (esoteric compile-to-js aside) on the front-end, so the sheer number of people/companies using JS is larger than basically any other language or framework.

3) Javascript is increasingly the first (and sometimes only) language that new developers learn and tinker with. And we get the resulting ideas/platforms/frameworks/etc/etc that people invent as they're learning.

Each time we get close to making performant and accessible web sites easy for mortals to develop, some major disruption in the force occurs and well-crafted solutions no longer work in the new environment. So people reinvent them, poorly, and it takes another four or five years before things catch up.

I think many designers and developers prioritize their own needs or preferences and fail to advocate for what users really want. No user wants a web site or app to take 10 seconds to load on their phone, yet most do. Users don't care if your app is written in React, Angular, or served from a WordPress site. They just want to be able to use it.

* C++ has changed a lot starting with C++11, and is still changing quickly. However, not nearly as quickly as JS.

* C is still stuck in the age of the dinosaurs. The tooling has gotten a little better with clang, cmake, etc. (though these are as much a result of its close relationship with C++ as anything).

* Assembly is not moving, mostly because it's dying. There's one notable exception: ARM.

* PHP is changing much faster than it has for a long time.

* I learned rails about 4-5 years ago and haven't done much with it since, but it doesn't seem very different (though this could be wrong).

* Rust, go, zig, and other new languages are all vying to replace legacy languages such as C/C++, even for high-performance, low-level applications. This may be part of the reason some things that didn't change previously are now changing: competition. Ditto with PHP and node.

* One other item of note I haven't really explored: functional programming seems to be the new hipster technology, and as a consequence is rapidly evolving.

It's kind of crazy in many places, which, to your earlier point, does indeed hinder productivity. For many people, more time is spent learning new frameworks, programming paradigms, etc. than actually doing work.

Oh, and I'm only commenting on the parts I have at least some experience with. I'm not sure for other areas. I've also heard a lot about swift on ios, along with cocoa. Even windows has uwp and has really been pushing its modernized c#/xaml ecosystem.