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Generational churn in the web front end framework space is a phenomenon deserving special examination. Just 2-4 years ago, Angular skills were in high demand,

Generational churn in the web front end framework space is a phenomenon deserving special examination. Just 2-4 years ago, Angular skills were in high demand, only to be completely replaced by React & Co. I'm not complaining, much preferring React's model over Angular's decorator and type heavy one which is too Java/JEE-ish for my taste. But what makes frontenders so confident they've found the holy grail at the height of a hype cycle every single time? Is it a sales story to better market one's skills? Is it a consequence of a young developer's mind trying to ascertain himself/herself and become part of a group of like-minded people? Because rationality seems not always a given when it comes to web dev. I've seen React projects which, frankly, were trivial to make using just basic Javascript and DOM techniques, plus maybe some jquery. But the developers absolutely wanted to pad their resumes with React above everything else.

sjellis 9y ago
I think that it's always worth remembering the iceberg effect when we talk about trends: the silent majority of developers don't comment on HN or Reddit, don't answer questions on Stack Overflow, don't publish code on GitHub, and are using the same un-hip stacks year-on-year (Java, C#, PHP, maybe Rails, jQuery or Angular). The C# developers that I have spoken to have used Angular for years, like TypeScript, and reach for Angular + TS by default, rather than React + ES6/7. Plenty of Rails developers stick with jQuery, maybe with some CoffeeScript: Rails only "modernized" their JS stack a few months ago.
- deleted 9y ago
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- timrichard 9y ago
  The last StackOverflow survey showed a much greater dev mindshare for Angular than React, so I'm not sure where the grandparent gets "completely replaced by React & Co"... unless going by HN/Reddit memes/buzz.
aikah 9y ago
There is no holy-grail. One cannot mask his ignorance of the DOM and web API with a front-end framework. Just like one cannot mask his ignorance of HTTP and REST with SPRING,ASP.NET,Django or Rails. you might know how to upload a file with Django API but if you can't do that with a barebone HTTP server then you'll be just another mediocre developer who only knows framework X or Y. Angular and co, it's just like Spring and Co, it's bureaucracy. Some people like bureaucracy, because it make them look busy.

sjellis 9y ago

I think that it's always worth remembering the iceberg effect when we talk about trends: the silent majority of developers don't comment on HN or Reddit, don't answer questions on Stack Overflow, don't publish code on GitHub, and are using the same un-hip stacks year-on-year (Java, C#, PHP, maybe Rails, jQuery or Angular). The C# developers that I have spoken to have used Angular for years, like TypeScript, and reach for Angular + TS by default, rather than React + ES6/7. Plenty of Rails developers stick with jQuery, maybe with some CoffeeScript: Rails only "modernized" their JS stack a few months ago.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
timrichard 9y ago
The last StackOverflow survey showed a much greater dev mindshare for Angular than React, so I'm not sure where the grandparent gets "completely replaced by React & Co"... unless going by HN/Reddit memes/buzz.

aikah 9y ago

There is no holy-grail. One cannot mask his ignorance of the DOM and web API with a front-end framework. Just like one cannot mask his ignorance of HTTP and REST with SPRING,ASP.NET,Django or Rails. you might know how to upload a file with Django API but if you can't do that with a barebone HTTP server then you'll be just another mediocre developer who only knows framework X or Y. Angular and co, it's just like Spring and Co, it's bureaucracy. Some people like bureaucracy, because it make them look busy.