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Funny, I had a phone screen today and in the midst of asking about how I saw my future and what I wanted to work in, the recruiter was tiptoeing around a situat

Funny, I had a phone screen today and in the midst of asking about how I saw my future and what I wanted to work in, the recruiter was tiptoeing around a situation where someone at the company had suggested React or something and the devs had pushed back (successfully) on the basis that the site didn't need it. I got the feeling he was trying not to step on my dreams of being a cutting-edge JS frontend trailblazer, but it is really a point in the company's favor (to me) that they were able to resist the urge. Basically, they are looking for web developers but it seems like they have to filter out all the frontend ninja rockstars.

Rapzid 9y ago
Why didn't they "need" it? How do they decide what they "need"? This sounds like typical anti-change pushback, which I have learned can actually be a good thing. However, this anecdote is severely lacking in insight; much like most people's support of, or opposition to, change. Further, like the widespread belief that sentences shouldn't start with conjunctions; much less conjunctive adverbs.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  Um, maybe they didn't need client side rendering? Plain 'ol server-side HTML templating was faster and simpler? Not every web project needs react, or even JS.
  - Rapzid 9y ago
    Sure, maybe. But the post doesn't go into the details or even indicate the details existed. I'm not sure there is much insight here sans those details.
    - disiplus 9y ago
      i recently saw multiple corporate sites implemented in angular 1. the job that should be plain simple html was done in angular, and you could notice it, simple flickering and slowdowns for no aparent benefit. just so stupid.
  - eropple 9y ago
    At this point, I'm not sure I agree. I am...not a fan of JavaScript, to put it mildly (though ES6 does a lot to suck less). But for my money, nothing out there is better at templating even static HTML than React and JSX. The compositional nature of components is way better than any other templating stack I've ever used and it's pretty easy to bake it into static HTML (Gatsby and `react-html-email` being awesome projects for it). I'm sure there are declarative, object-oriented (rather than text-oriented) templating engines out there that use an approach like React's. But I would consider using an imperative, text-oriented templating language a yellow, if not red, flag in 2017.
    - paulddraper 9y ago
      I use Twirl, included in the Play Framework (Scala/Java). It is functional (well, as functional as React), and templates compile to plain 'ol functions, so compatibility and static typing is the same as the rest of the your program. Obviously, if I needed a SPA or something, it's not what I would use, but again, not everything should be an SPA.
      - eropple 9y ago
        You don't need to use React as a SPA, though, is what I'm saying. (When using React, those component trees, too, compile to 100% plain-ol'-functions.) Twirl is fine, insofar as it's attached to the Play (that's not to impugn you for picking it, my history with Play is colorful and frustrating). I wouldn't raise a flag for that. But not using something in this vein definitely is, and React is probably the most accessible way to do it for the 90-95% case of developers.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rhizome 9y ago
  I don't know all the reasons they didn't "need" it, it was just a phone screen with their recruiter. The point was just that they only used a sprinkling of JS in general. And your semicolon is misplaced.
chaosphere2112 9y ago
I had a phone screen with a start up in the middle of my last job hunt where they let me know they were in the middle of porting their entire frontend to React + Redux, while rewriting their backend. I was "unable to find time" to meet with them further.

Rapzid 9y ago

Why didn't they "need" it? How do they decide what they "need"? This sounds like typical anti-change pushback, which I have learned can actually be a good thing. However, this anecdote is severely lacking in insight; much like most people's support of, or opposition to, change. Further, like the widespread belief that sentences shouldn't start with conjunctions; much less conjunctive adverbs.

paulddraper 9y ago
Um, maybe they didn't need client side rendering? Plain 'ol server-side HTML templating was faster and simpler? Not every web project needs react, or even JS.
- Rapzid 9y ago
  Sure, maybe. But the post doesn't go into the details or even indicate the details existed. I'm not sure there is much insight here sans those details.
  - disiplus 9y ago
    i recently saw multiple corporate sites implemented in angular 1. the job that should be plain simple html was done in angular, and you could notice it, simple flickering and slowdowns for no aparent benefit. just so stupid.
- eropple 9y ago
  At this point, I'm not sure I agree. I am...not a fan of JavaScript, to put it mildly (though ES6 does a lot to suck less). But for my money, nothing out there is better at templating even static HTML than React and JSX. The compositional nature of components is way better than any other templating stack I've ever used and it's pretty easy to bake it into static HTML (Gatsby and `react-html-email` being awesome projects for it). I'm sure there are declarative, object-oriented (rather than text-oriented) templating engines out there that use an approach like React's. But I would consider using an imperative, text-oriented templating language a yellow, if not red, flag in 2017.
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    I use Twirl, included in the Play Framework (Scala/Java). It is functional (well, as functional as React), and templates compile to plain 'ol functions, so compatibility and static typing is the same as the rest of the your program. Obviously, if I needed a SPA or something, it's not what I would use, but again, not everything should be an SPA.
    - eropple 9y ago
      You don't need to use React as a SPA, though, is what I'm saying. (When using React, those component trees, too, compile to 100% plain-ol'-functions.) Twirl is fine, insofar as it's attached to the Play (that's not to impugn you for picking it, my history with Play is colorful and frustrating). I wouldn't raise a flag for that. But not using something in this vein definitely is, and React is probably the most accessible way to do it for the 90-95% case of developers.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rhizome 9y ago
I don't know all the reasons they didn't "need" it, it was just a phone screen with their recruiter. The point was just that they only used a sprinkling of JS in general. And your semicolon is misplaced.

chaosphere2112 9y ago

I had a phone screen with a start up in the middle of my last job hunt where they let me know they were in the middle of porting their entire frontend to React + Redux, while rewriting their backend. I was "unable to find time" to meet with them further.