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Why are there so many JavaScript frameworks?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why are there so many JavaScript frameworks?

#41

Post by darcinc »

I've thought about this a lot as well and here's my humble opinion.

1) Writing frameworks in languages like C++ is hard. So you would expect to see fewer frameworks.

2) When a language is popular, like JavaScript, you get a lot of activity. (Notice the lack of new COBOL frameworks on Hacker News).

3) JavaScript can be fixed with polyfills, frameworks, monkey-patching, etc. So we fix the language until that fix is part of the language.

4) JavaScript is almost perfect for writing web clients and servers, and we're all trying to fix that 'almost' part.

5) Ego is part of it - you have to engage in some level of promotion (otherwise you can't cut through the noise).

6) It's fun. It amazes me what I can do with JavaScript some times. I wouldn't mind doing that all day.

Re: Why are there so many JavaScript frameworks?

#42

Post by barberousse »

Besides the need to differentiate one's resume creating the supply, the demand for all these frameworks partially comes from the fact that computer science education is significantly less standardized amongst front-end developers, so there's urgency to find solutions that one groks more than one that is demonstrably more robust, etc

Re: Why are there so many JavaScript frameworks?

#44

Post by kangnkodos »

There are two parts to the equation. Why do people create them? Why do people start using them?

The first question has been answered nicely by many other people.

To answer the second question, I think you need to consider the people who are trying to make a living from open source software. The teachers, bloggers, live streamers, book authors (are there still any book authors?). If they manage to jump on the next big wave early, they can become the established expert, and this may lead to money. 4 - Profit.

So many new framework will be met by a few early adopters trying to eke out a living, or maybe make it big. Especially if the new framework promises to solve an issue present in an existing popular framework. And this is impportant... All existing frameworks have different drawbacks. There's always tradeoffs when you design a framework. When you optimize a framework to make X easier, you almost always make Y harder. I don't think there's any way around this.

Then, when the average programmer sees many blog posts about a new framework, they may pick it up, and give it a try. The circle of framework life.

Re: Why are there so many JavaScript frameworks?

#45

Post by peelle »

syntheticcdo wrote: post #12

Conversely, why are there so many back-end programming languages? C#? Java? ColdFusion? PHP? Node? Rust? C++? Ruby? Python? Do we really such have different requirements that there need to be so many!?

We shouldn't compare creation of languages to frameworks. If you look at back end frameworks, like web MVCs or ORMs, each language usually only has one or two major players.

Re: Why are there so many JavaScript frameworks?

#46

Post by barberousse »

jasode wrote: post #35
barberousse wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript was never designed with the intent of ever being anything like Java is terms of reach and magnitude though, that's a hindsight thing.

>Javascript was never designed with the intent of ever being anything like Java I agree.[0] I'm not criticizing Javascript nor Brendan Eich but trying to state why Javascript's particular history of minimal built-in capabilities has a ripple effect of motivating lots of bespoke frameworks. In a similar vein, the early C++ language didn't have a very extensive string manipulation library. So what happens? Different C+…

Understood
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