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How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

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Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#91

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

TamDenholm wrote: post #6

I'm a web dev, been doing this 11 years. But i totally feel past it, granted i code less and less nowadays so i havent kept up with new technologies. I've hired people that are much better at web dev than me and let them accomplish a task with pretty much whatever tech they want to use, because i believe you shouldn't constrict a developer if you dont have to. Even for a simple app that it'd take me 20 - 30 hours for…

'gulp or grunt' are these actual JavaScript libraries/frameworks? Or are you referring to human bodily noises?

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#92

Post by jajern »

acdha wrote: post #21
Scarblac wrote: post #7

The worst is, if you don't keep up with this, good luck getting a web job five years from now, you'll be the equivalent of a Cobol programmer. Can't get off the train.

I wouldn't pick on the COBOL programmers too much – they've had a half a century of decent jobs, after all. The lesson I'd draw from that is that you want to avoid siloing yourself. Most of those COBOL developers worked on the same kind of systems, often in the same place, for long periods of time. That kind of deep specialization is useful but also dangerous to you in direct relation to where that larger field is go…

There are still COBOL jobs too. Where I'm at Fortran is still pretty popular. Hell, I just wrote an internal app to communicate with a Vax!

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#93

Post by nbevans »

brunoc wrote: post #64
nbevans wrote: post #11

Very accurate. The web is still highly immature and the rate of change is proof of that. Very much looking forward to WebAssembly (and its full adoption by web browsers) so then we can end this madness once and for all.

I hear this a lot, but I don't get it. How would this help make things simpler or stop "this madness"? If anything it opens up the possibility for even more crazyness. The only difference is you (maybe) get to pick your favourite language instead of learning new ones.

It's not so much about picking your "favourite" language. That's what drove NodeJS to exist. But more about picking a more appropriate language that has a well engineered base class library and third party libraries. They will come. This comes down to choosing the best tool for the job at hand.

JavaScript developers have been able to, in recent years, benefit in some ways by being able to write their server-side in JS as well (see NodeJS). There are various buzzwords to describe this capability. WebAssembly will help normalise this so that other languages can also have this capability. By being able to share types between the server and web browser client, there are large productivity and program correctness gains to be unlocked.

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#94

Post by tkubacki »

kingmanaz wrote: post #87
tkubacki wrote: post #28

And that's way I feel much more comfortable in Dart ecosystem: - sane SDK and sane - not surprising - lang without this hell - jquery like functionality built in - one package manager and package repository - can be used on server as well - nice tooling (WebStorm-IntelliJ, VisualStudio Code)

Would have preferred that Google had put their resources behind something like GopherJS instead of yet another C#/Java-like, feature-creep prone language.

their reasoning was AFAIK - lang needs to be C#, Java like to reach mainstream web devs

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#95

Post by cloverich »

hemancuso wrote: post #83
marrs wrote: post #65

In my experience, the developers who fall into this trap of despair almost always do so because they aren't consciously choosing what tools to use; instead they are letting the tools choose them. They see job descriptions demanding AngularJS or ReactJS and they think that they must learn it, or someone posts an article here and they don't want to feel left behind. Choose a library or tool because it improves your dev…

How would you suggest developers actually figure out what tools to use? It is next to impossible to make an informed decision without digesting a good portion of what the OP is talking about. You need to start somewhere.

Where the OP falls off is with stuff like "OMG don't use jQuery" or "no one uses HTML anymore". There's nothing wrong with using those -- and frankly using plain old javascript and HTML is fine. Remember we reached for jQuery in the first place because the browser lacked features we wanted, and because it handled cross browser stuff for us. That is, it simplified things we were already doing manually. So the trap is bad advice like "use these 58 libraries" combined with an inexperienced person making the architecture choices. I'd say instead (if you're the inexperienced person) just start building stuff. Then every time you said "this is repetitive, I wish there was a library that did this for me" -- there will be. Go out and get it, and you'll then understand why it exists.

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#96

Post by scottmf »

mattmanser wrote: post #53
scottmf wrote: post #51

Funny, but it's not quite that complex. How about "Here's a link to a CLI utility or git repo which will give you a working project in 2-3 hours"? I took a break from web dev for some years and had barely used any JS frameworks besides jQuery, until June, when I began working on an ambitious project and quickly got up to speed with the state of JS. I'm using React/Redux/Sagas/Webpack/etc. for the client, and Express…

Funny, but it's not quite that complex. I'm using React/Redux/Sagas/Webpack/etc. for the client, and Express (with ES6 and what have you) Funny, but that sounds like the very definition of complex. I particularly love the "etc." and "what have you" because your stack is so complex you can't even be bothered to type them all out.

I don't see it as too different from "I'm using Rails, ActiveRecord, Sprockets, Ruby 2, CoffeeScript, etc".

Which stack do you prefer to use?

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#97

Post by talmand »

enraged_camel wrote: post #85
talmand wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> now I know nothing because what I know is "uncool" You want to know what's "uncool" around here for me? Wanting to markup a table with table elements, mostly for the accessibility benefits. I've never seen such an odd pushback. Tables are so "old" I'm told.

Actually, what people frown upon is using tables for layout. Using them to display actual tabular data is quite fine. (I mean, everything is fine at the end of the day as long as the end-user is happy, but you know what I mean...)

No, you don't understand. I don't want to use tables for layout, I want to use tables to display a good old-fashioned table. A table displayed in an otherwise normally marked up page. That is what's getting the pushback.

I guess I could say I want to use table elements to layout a table, which would trigger the "don't use tables for layout" argument.

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#98

Post by nkassis »

jbb555 wrote: post #37

I do feel that the javascript people have made C++ look simple. Not so much the language perhaps, but making programs in it..

I dunno I think they are on par as far as toolchain goes. autotools, cmake etc.. are no worse or better than gulp, webpack etc...

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#99

Post by sunshiney »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #58
TamDenholm wrote: post #6

I'm a web dev, been doing this 11 years. But i totally feel past it, granted i code less and less nowadays so i havent kept up with new technologies. I've hired people that are much better at web dev than me and let them accomplish a task with pretty much whatever tech they want to use, because i believe you shouldn't constrict a developer if you dont have to. Even for a simple app that it'd take me 20 - 30 hours for…

> I still feel like a bad coder because i'm not doing it their way. :( You’re doing it wrong. You’re not the one who should feel bad, they are the ones who should feel bad! You’re in the right. Try doing what I do: wave your cane around and shout at them to get off your lawn. Be sure to really drive it home by telling them the same two or three stories over and over again, about how things were back in “your day”[0]…

sits here stunned at how perfectly you described my young adult days....

Re: How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

#100

Post by ryanSrich »

Scarblac wrote: post #7

The worst is, if you don't keep up with this, good luck getting a web job five years from now, you'll be the equivalent of a Cobol programmer. Can't get off the train.

The good news is that the person hiring you doesn't know what any of this stuff means either. So just read a couple medium articles and fake it, man.
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