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I am amazed by how the article attempts to look forward to what the future will hold with JavaScript frameworks... and yet seems to be completely both dismiss o

by apalmer 11y ago

I am amazed by how the article attempts to look forward to what the future will hold with JavaScript frameworks... and yet seems to be completely both dismiss or misunderstand (perhaps willfully) why previous frameworks have succeeded. jQuery did not succeed because it was a 'good enough' competitor to dojo or prototype or mootools or extjs... it succeeded because it went completely the opposite direction. it did not attempt to be a fundamental ui framework like those guys, it didn't try to be full featured, it didn't try to change javascript to look like another language and didn't try to shift the paradigm of the front end development world.

arnorhs 11y ago
well said. another important thing to remember is when jQuery came about interfacing with the DOM was really messy across browsers. Ajax queries as well. simplifying those, in my opinion, the killer features of jQuery at the time. Interfacing with the DOM was not even something that dojo, mootools etc were doing at the time. At least that part wasn't as obvious/easy in those frameworks.
- lolc 11y ago
  The big change I experienced with Jquery is that it operates on sets of elements. It eliminated most guards and loops I'd been accustomed to when dealing with the DOM.
incepted 11y ago
jQuery filled a need. It's as simple as that. Its success has nothing to do with looking in the other direction or not redefining Javascript: it solved a problem that a lot of Javascript developers were struggling with. Now what's really fascinating to me now is that while one can safely say jQuery created a revolution in the Javascript world when it came out, it is today widely looked as a smell and avoided as much as possible in favor or frameworks that modify the model instead of the UI. And this quick rise to success and fall to obscurity could very well happen to the successful frameworks we are currently using today (including React).
- faceyspacey 11y ago
  it wasn't "quick" though. React had a good run. One of the best "runs" you could hope for at the end of the day.
  - ZoF 11y ago
    You mean JQuery had a good run?
    - faceyspacey 11y ago
      oops, yea.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- rimantas 11y ago
  That need was filled by Prototype.js before jQuery. I remember the times when Rails defaulted to Prototype (author was a member of Rails core team, iirc). I also remember when we still had to choose between the two for the new project and I was unhappy if the choice was Prototype. So they both solved the problem, but jQuery's solution was more focused and way more elegant.
  - apalmer 11y ago
    thing about prototype is it fundamentally changed how you dealt with javascript. jquery was just easy dom selection and manipulation, easy ajax, and easy events... you could drop it into any project and it didnt really proscribe anything else...
- apalmer 11y ago
  I agree whole heartedly thats what i am getting at... jQuery succeeded not by trying to be everything but by trying to solve a real straightforward common issue that affects big projects and small projects, super senior developers and junior developers... I am not suggesting we go back to jquery, i am suggesting that the next really successful widespread framework is going to get adopting by solving a specific widespread problem in a way that appears simple to the consuming developer... as for jquerys run, it had the best run of any javascript framework in history, by a wide margin... and it really got supplanted not by other frameworks, or even by just losing popularity... it was so successful that it drove all the modern browsers to adopt its api and build it natively into the browser engine...
EGreg 11y ago
Frameworks succeed for diffrent reasons. I am guessing your definition of success is being widespread. Of course, having to swap out both your front and back end or start a new app from scratch to take advantage will limit the number of applications for it. Why did Wordpress succeed, by the way?
Karunamon 11y ago
Silly question - why are is everybody talking about jQuery in the past tense and why are you saying it "did not succeed"? It just got a beta release of a major version less than a week ago, it's a core part of Bootstrap, which just about anyone building webapps has used at some point, and depending on whose statistics you look at[1], powers a frankly absurd number of sites, including things everyone's heard of like Microsoft and Yahoo and Amazon. That's the opposite of a has-been thing that did not succeed in my book. [1]: http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/js-jquery/all/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/js-jquery/all/all
- xaduha 11y ago
  jQuery is not cool. It's been there, done that for most, we all know where that road leads.
  - pavlov 11y ago
    ...we all know where that road leads. Code that works without surprises, experience that accumulates, projects that can be executed reliably? But of course that's not much fun when compared to tinkering around with to-do example apps on the new new thing.
    - SignMeTheHELLUp 11y ago
      Doesn't really scale to larger projects. Managing application and UI state becomes too cumbersome. With that said the new things are still very rough, I agree, but they will make our lives easier after it all settles down. It's already beginning to settle down with React becoming semi-standard.
      - pavlov 11y ago
        Large projects are never simple and fun. Blaming it on tools is too often just scapegoating. Chasing a magic bullet can temporarily make it look like you're avoiding the problems of large projects, because when you're constantly switching frameworks you never actually reach the point of having built something large enough.
huula 11y ago
+1. Meteor should try to optimize their build time (for example, when I just changed one JS file, there's no point to spend more than 20 seconds to reload a simple page) and be frontend agnostic. The main thing I like Meteor (and also why I'm still sticking around) is how it manages data and the DDP stuff. Never a fan of Blaze, but certainly not sure about this "future vision".
- hornbaker 11y ago
  I gave up on Meteor because of 10-20 sec build times. They have to fix that.

by apalmer 11y ago

arnorhs 11y ago

well said. another important thing to remember is when jQuery came about interfacing with the DOM was really messy across browsers. Ajax queries as well. simplifying those, in my opinion, the killer features of jQuery at the time. Interfacing with the DOM was not even something that dojo, mootools etc were doing at the time. At least that part wasn't as obvious/easy in those frameworks.

lolc 11y ago
The big change I experienced with Jquery is that it operates on sets of elements. It eliminated most guards and loops I'd been accustomed to when dealing with the DOM.

incepted 11y ago

jQuery filled a need. It's as simple as that. Its success has nothing to do with looking in the other direction or not redefining Javascript: it solved a problem that a lot of Javascript developers were struggling with. Now what's really fascinating to me now is that while one can safely say jQuery created a revolution in the Javascript world when it came out, it is today widely looked as a smell and avoided as much as possible in favor or frameworks that modify the model instead of the UI. And this quick rise to success and fall to obscurity could very well happen to the successful frameworks we are currently using today (including React).

faceyspacey 11y ago
it wasn't "quick" though. React had a good run. One of the best "runs" you could hope for at the end of the day.
- ZoF 11y ago
  You mean JQuery had a good run?
  - faceyspacey 11y ago
    oops, yea.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
rimantas 11y ago
That need was filled by Prototype.js before jQuery. I remember the times when Rails defaulted to Prototype (author was a member of Rails core team, iirc). I also remember when we still had to choose between the two for the new project and I was unhappy if the choice was Prototype. So they both solved the problem, but jQuery's solution was more focused and way more elegant.
- apalmer 11y ago
  thing about prototype is it fundamentally changed how you dealt with javascript. jquery was just easy dom selection and manipulation, easy ajax, and easy events... you could drop it into any project and it didnt really proscribe anything else...
apalmer 11y ago
I agree whole heartedly thats what i am getting at... jQuery succeeded not by trying to be everything but by trying to solve a real straightforward common issue that affects big projects and small projects, super senior developers and junior developers... I am not suggesting we go back to jquery, i am suggesting that the next really successful widespread framework is going to get adopting by solving a specific widespread problem in a way that appears simple to the consuming developer... as for jquerys run, it had the best run of any javascript framework in history, by a wide margin... and it really got supplanted not by other frameworks, or even by just losing popularity... it was so successful that it drove all the modern browsers to adopt its api and build it natively into the browser engine...

EGreg 11y ago

Frameworks succeed for diffrent reasons. I am guessing your definition of success is being widespread. Of course, having to swap out both your front and back end or start a new app from scratch to take advantage will limit the number of applications for it. Why did Wordpress succeed, by the way?

Karunamon 11y ago

Silly question - why are is everybody talking about jQuery in the past tense and why are you saying it "did not succeed"? It just got a beta release of a major version less than a week ago, it's a core part of Bootstrap, which just about anyone building webapps has used at some point, and depending on whose statistics you look at[1], powers a frankly absurd number of sites, including things everyone's heard of like Microsoft and Yahoo and Amazon. That's the opposite of a has-been thing that did not succeed in my book. [1]: http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/js-jquery/all/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/js-jquery/all/all

xaduha 11y ago
jQuery is not cool. It's been there, done that for most, we all know where that road leads.
- pavlov 11y ago
  ...we all know where that road leads. Code that works without surprises, experience that accumulates, projects that can be executed reliably? But of course that's not much fun when compared to tinkering around with to-do example apps on the new new thing.
  - SignMeTheHELLUp 11y ago
    Doesn't really scale to larger projects. Managing application and UI state becomes too cumbersome. With that said the new things are still very rough, I agree, but they will make our lives easier after it all settles down. It's already beginning to settle down with React becoming semi-standard.
    - pavlov 11y ago
      Large projects are never simple and fun. Blaming it on tools is too often just scapegoating. Chasing a magic bullet can temporarily make it look like you're avoiding the problems of large projects, because when you're constantly switching frameworks you never actually reach the point of having built something large enough.

huula 11y ago

+1. Meteor should try to optimize their build time (for example, when I just changed one JS file, there's no point to spend more than 20 seconds to reload a simple page) and be frontend agnostic. The main thing I like Meteor (and also why I'm still sticking around) is how it manages data and the DDP stuff. Never a fan of Blaze, but certainly not sure about this "future vision".

hornbaker 11y ago
I gave up on Meteor because of 10-20 sec build times. They have to fix that.