3 ms·

It's scary that if you don't jump on some kind of framework bandwagon, you'll be half as productive as framework devotees within 4-5 years. When I joined my cu

It's scary that if you don't jump on some kind of framework bandwagon, you'll be half as productive as framework devotees within 4-5 years. When I joined my current team in 2015, they were still using Python Paste and jQuery for everything, while I was well-versed in Angular + a modern Python server framework. Armed with my modern libraries, I could do more in 1 day than an average teammate could in a week. In other words, my team lost a staggering amount of productivity over the past 2-3 years, just because they were hanging onto old ways that were still legit even in like 2011. And it's obvious that the half-life of frameworks is only decreasing over time. What will happen when an average framework's half life is 1 year? Or 6 months? Humans aren't built to adapt so much, so quickly. I can gain proficiency with a new library in 3-4 months, but what happens when I get tired of doing that? Will I just fade into the background as some high school kid outproduces me 5:1 simply because he was lucky enough to learn FrameWorkABC a couple months ago while I was busy with a personal issue? Hopefully by that time, the singularity will be so close at hand that we'll have bigger fish to fry, like basic income, or something.

tritium 11y ago
I mean, it is still 2015, though, right?
s_kilk 11y ago
> What will happen when an average framework's half life is 1 year? Or 6 months? I think that's the point where everyone will just give up on frothy frameworks and the pendulum will swing back toward more stable and well-worn libraries. I mean, we're already having that discussion right now, so I don't think it'll even get that bad.
- cam- 11y ago
  Java went through this in the late 1990s and early aughts. Now everyone pretty much uses Spring.
chubot 11y ago
Honest question: what kinds of things are you doing with React/Angular that you can't do with jQuery? (I'm not a front end developer -- though I do write significant amounts of raw HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). Is it really higher productivity, or is it just keeping up with the latest fashion? I feel like the vast majority of websites don't need more than a little JavaScript -- exceptions being Google Maps, Google Docs and spreadsheets, etc. AirBNB is listed here -- honest question: do they really need a lot of JS? I mean mainly it's showing a lot of pictures and providing good navigation and search. Am I missing something? It's basically like eBay in 2000 except prettier, and that was done without a lot of JS. https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React Asana might be a good candidate for a real "app" that needs the complexity. Why is Wired on there? I think news sites are the worst offenders in terms of using unneeded JavaScript.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>Honest question: what kinds of things are you doing with React/Angular that you can't do with jQuery? [...] Is it really higher productivity, or is it just keeping up with the latest fashion? Answer to the first question: nothing. Everything you develop using React/Angular/etc. can be written using vanilla HTML/CSS/JS. The difference is that, as your pages become more and more interactive, it becomes harder and harder to deal with the complexity. I recently developed a web form that has a little over 1,000 lines of JQuery. After a while, it became really difficult to keep track of various event handlers, when they would fire and how to make sure they didn't interfere with each other. If I were using a framework like React, it would have been much easier. Here's a diagram that outlines this concept: http://imgur.com/dSQTLDE http://imgur.com/dSQTLDE >>I feel like the vast majority of websites don't need more than a little JavaScript Websites don't. Web apps do. The distinction becomes bigger and more important every day.
  - chubot 11y ago
    I just have a hard time understanding where all these web apps are coming from, and what the real requirement is. It seems to me that the ratio of problems that require web apps to web sites is more like 1:1000 than 1:10. In other words, I wonder why it seems everyone is using React or Angular, rather than just a few people. I mentioned Google maps, docs, and spreadsheets as bona fide apps. They require a completely different approach. They are extraordinarily stateful on the client. What other sites need that? As mentioned, I don't think AirBNB does. How much state does it need on a page? It's basically like a shopping cart, like eBay. You search for properties, and then you book one. (Maybe it is different for listers, I haven't listed). I get that you need more advanced stuff like React and Angular to manage a lot of state on the client. jQuery gets messy in that case. But I am wondering why apps all of the sudden need this much state. If you break up your app into different pages, then you don't need so much state on each page. The state is in the URI. In other words, I see a lot of it as self-inflicted pain... the customer didn't actually want all this stuff. They just want to order a meal online or something. I looked through that whole "Built with React" github page, and I am still trying to understand where the requirements for lots of state are. I don't buy the motivation of keeping everything on one page to save network latency... if you actually profile a lot of web pages nowadays, the rendering time is greater than network time! I'm seeing full seconds reported by Chrome dev tools just to render!!! It doesn't appear that anyone cares about latency, given how slow most web sites and apps are.

tritium 11y ago

I mean, it is still 2015, though, right?

s_kilk 11y ago

> What will happen when an average framework's half life is 1 year? Or 6 months? I think that's the point where everyone will just give up on frothy frameworks and the pendulum will swing back toward more stable and well-worn libraries. I mean, we're already having that discussion right now, so I don't think it'll even get that bad.

cam- 11y ago
Java went through this in the late 1990s and early aughts. Now everyone pretty much uses Spring.

chubot 11y ago

Honest question: what kinds of things are you doing with React/Angular that you can't do with jQuery? (I'm not a front end developer -- though I do write significant amounts of raw HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). Is it really higher productivity, or is it just keeping up with the latest fashion? I feel like the vast majority of websites don't need more than a little JavaScript -- exceptions being Google Maps, Google Docs and spreadsheets, etc. AirBNB is listed here -- honest question: do they really need a lot of JS? I mean mainly it's showing a lot of pictures and providing good navigation and search. Am I missing something? It's basically like eBay in 2000 except prettier, and that was done without a lot of JS. https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React Asana might be a good candidate for a real "app" that needs the complexity. Why is Wired on there? I think news sites are the worst offenders in terms of using unneeded JavaScript.

enraged_camel 11y ago
>>Honest question: what kinds of things are you doing with React/Angular that you can't do with jQuery? [...] Is it really higher productivity, or is it just keeping up with the latest fashion? Answer to the first question: nothing. Everything you develop using React/Angular/etc. can be written using vanilla HTML/CSS/JS. The difference is that, as your pages become more and more interactive, it becomes harder and harder to deal with the complexity. I recently developed a web form that has a little over 1,000 lines of JQuery. After a while, it became really difficult to keep track of various event handlers, when they would fire and how to make sure they didn't interfere with each other. If I were using a framework like React, it would have been much easier. Here's a diagram that outlines this concept: http://imgur.com/dSQTLDE http://imgur.com/dSQTLDE >>I feel like the vast majority of websites don't need more than a little JavaScript Websites don't. Web apps do. The distinction becomes bigger and more important every day.
- chubot 11y ago
  I just have a hard time understanding where all these web apps are coming from, and what the real requirement is. It seems to me that the ratio of problems that require web apps to web sites is more like 1:1000 than 1:10. In other words, I wonder why it seems everyone is using React or Angular, rather than just a few people. I mentioned Google maps, docs, and spreadsheets as bona fide apps. They require a completely different approach. They are extraordinarily stateful on the client. What other sites need that? As mentioned, I don't think AirBNB does. How much state does it need on a page? It's basically like a shopping cart, like eBay. You search for properties, and then you book one. (Maybe it is different for listers, I haven't listed). I get that you need more advanced stuff like React and Angular to manage a lot of state on the client. jQuery gets messy in that case. But I am wondering why apps all of the sudden need this much state. If you break up your app into different pages, then you don't need so much state on each page. The state is in the URI. In other words, I see a lot of it as self-inflicted pain... the customer didn't actually want all this stuff. They just want to order a meal online or something. I looked through that whole "Built with React" github page, and I am still trying to understand where the requirements for lots of state are. I don't buy the motivation of keeping everything on one page to save network latency... if you actually profile a lot of web pages nowadays, the rendering time is greater than network time! I'm seeing full seconds reported by Chrome dev tools just to render!!! It doesn't appear that anyone cares about latency, given how slow most web sites and apps are.