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I'm pretty sure you're just playing with words here. One of the most common complaints is that the biggest web tools are libraries, not frameworks. React, for

I'm pretty sure you're just playing with words here. One of the most common complaints is that the biggest web tools are libraries, not frameworks. React, for example, is very emphatically not a framework. To develop any reasonably sized application, you need to bring in a number of other libraries as well (such as Redux and/or Apollo).

dkarl 10y ago
It isn't just words — the words reflect people's expectation that a framework determines quite a lot about your design and approach. It's a system and a way of programming you assimilate into. A library tries to help you do something while dictating as little as possible about your overall application design. I think it's very interesting that even though the expert and experienced programmers who create things like backbone.js and React have openly and explicitly designed them not to be frameworks, people continue to call them frameworks, and not disparagingly. There seems to be a huge appetite for frameworks. From the outside (and definitely projecting my own inexperience) I would guess that a lot of people feel lost architecting a web UI from scratch. They don't want building blocks. They want a way, a path to follow. A lot of server programmers felt the same way twenty years ago. Adopting a framework meant giving up freedom that they didn't want in the first place because they didn't know what to do with it. But I'm coming at it from a very outside/inexperienced perspective, so I feel like I should leave it as a question rather than a comment. What do you think? Why are frameworks considered such a good thing in web UI programming that widely used and admired libraries end up being called "frameworks" as a term of respect?
- morgante 10y ago
  I think your entire comment is built on a false pretense that popular libraries are called "frameworks." I have never once heard an experienced JavaScript programmer call React a framework. It's objectively not. To build any reasonable application you'll also have to choose, at the very least, a state management utility as well. That being said, I'm sure there are beginners who call React a "framework" but that can easily be explained by the simple fact that they are beginners: they don't really understand what React is or even what the differences between libraries and frameworks are. They assume any stack has to be built in some sort of framework, so React is that "framework."
- amirouche 10y ago
  First you can use reactjs alone without a flux architecture. > Why are frameworks considered such a good thing The only thing nice about framework is that they make the main workflow obvious. But things becomes scary when you walk on the wild side (backed by experience with Django and Django RESTframework) The problem with reactjs is that facebook was using reactjs and its "architecture" for big apps and now they try to make it work in a more general context. > in web UI programming that widely used and admired libraries end up being called "frameworks" as a term of respect? Backbone is framework, saying it's a library because you can use only the collection model and use whatever method you want to fetch your data or whatever template language or bind events yourself is like saying you can replace the URL routing or template language of Django on your own. Doable but not recommended.

dkarl 10y ago

It isn't just words — the words reflect people's expectation that a framework determines quite a lot about your design and approach. It's a system and a way of programming you assimilate into. A library tries to help you do something while dictating as little as possible about your overall application design. I think it's very interesting that even though the expert and experienced programmers who create things like backbone.js and React have openly and explicitly designed them not to be frameworks, people continue to call them frameworks, and not disparagingly. There seems to be a huge appetite for frameworks. From the outside (and definitely projecting my own inexperience) I would guess that a lot of people feel lost architecting a web UI from scratch. They don't want building blocks. They want a way, a path to follow. A lot of server programmers felt the same way twenty years ago. Adopting a framework meant giving up freedom that they didn't want in the first place because they didn't know what to do with it. But I'm coming at it from a very outside/inexperienced perspective, so I feel like I should leave it as a question rather than a comment. What do you think? Why are frameworks considered such a good thing in web UI programming that widely used and admired libraries end up being called "frameworks" as a term of respect?

morgante 10y ago
I think your entire comment is built on a false pretense that popular libraries are called "frameworks." I have never once heard an experienced JavaScript programmer call React a framework. It's objectively not. To build any reasonable application you'll also have to choose, at the very least, a state management utility as well. That being said, I'm sure there are beginners who call React a "framework" but that can easily be explained by the simple fact that they are beginners: they don't really understand what React is or even what the differences between libraries and frameworks are. They assume any stack has to be built in some sort of framework, so React is that "framework."
amirouche 10y ago
First you can use reactjs alone without a flux architecture. > Why are frameworks considered such a good thing The only thing nice about framework is that they make the main workflow obvious. But things becomes scary when you walk on the wild side (backed by experience with Django and Django RESTframework) The problem with reactjs is that facebook was using reactjs and its "architecture" for big apps and now they try to make it work in a more general context. > in web UI programming that widely used and admired libraries end up being called "frameworks" as a term of respect? Backbone is framework, saying it's a library because you can use only the collection model and use whatever method you want to fetch your data or whatever template language or bind events yourself is like saying you can replace the URL routing or template language of Django on your own. Doable but not recommended.