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Please stop calling it JavaScript Fatigue. The complaints are web development related(specifically the browser) not language specific. The distinction is import

Please stop calling it JavaScript Fatigue. The complaints are web development related(specifically the browser) not language specific. The distinction is important because people keep trying to compare the issues with other languages.

nzjrs 9y ago
Are you saying framework proliferation and the "million modules problem" are not a pain in a non-web application?
- shusson 9y ago
  Sort of, I would say that the "million modules problem" is caused by the ever changing but backwards compatible web standards. So even if you don't target the web, but use web tech, you'll suffer similar issues.
pluma 9y ago
I am what the cool kids call a fullstack developer these days. I use JavaScript in the browser and on the server. My build tools are written in JavaScript. I also write JavaScript for the database (in fact, I am a contributor to a database that is partially implemented in JavaScript). It's absolutely a JavaScript "problem", not one that's specific to web development. Web development is certainly where it's the most prominent but the problem itself isn't at all related to the web. JavaScript fatigue describes FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as experienced by developers trying to keep up with rapid developments in tooling/libraries. It's not even really about the language, thanks to Elm, Reason and other new languages that joined the ecosystem. You're right that it has little to do with the language, but it also has little to do with the niche. Anyone interested in DevOps experienced some degree of FOMO when suddenly Puppet, Chef and Ansible became a thing (being fundamentally different but also mostly doing the same job). If you just started out with Linux before Ubuntu pretty much became the mainstream starting point, "distro fatigue" was almost certainly a thing. It's just plain old FOMO, but with a tweetable buzzword attached to it.
- shusson 9y ago
  Languages usually have a technology that drives their popularity. Javascript has the browser, and in my opinion the browser is the reason for most of the fatigue. Sure call it FOMO, and of course it happens in other domains, but web development has it particularly bad. For example compare iOS development vs web development.

nzjrs 9y ago

Are you saying framework proliferation and the "million modules problem" are not a pain in a non-web application?

shusson 9y ago
Sort of, I would say that the "million modules problem" is caused by the ever changing but backwards compatible web standards. So even if you don't target the web, but use web tech, you'll suffer similar issues.

pluma 9y ago

I am what the cool kids call a fullstack developer these days. I use JavaScript in the browser and on the server. My build tools are written in JavaScript. I also write JavaScript for the database (in fact, I am a contributor to a database that is partially implemented in JavaScript). It's absolutely a JavaScript "problem", not one that's specific to web development. Web development is certainly where it's the most prominent but the problem itself isn't at all related to the web. JavaScript fatigue describes FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as experienced by developers trying to keep up with rapid developments in tooling/libraries. It's not even really about the language, thanks to Elm, Reason and other new languages that joined the ecosystem. You're right that it has little to do with the language, but it also has little to do with the niche. Anyone interested in DevOps experienced some degree of FOMO when suddenly Puppet, Chef and Ansible became a thing (being fundamentally different but also mostly doing the same job). If you just started out with Linux before Ubuntu pretty much became the mainstream starting point, "distro fatigue" was almost certainly a thing. It's just plain old FOMO, but with a tweetable buzzword attached to it.

shusson 9y ago
Languages usually have a technology that drives their popularity. Javascript has the browser, and in my opinion the browser is the reason for most of the fatigue. Sure call it FOMO, and of course it happens in other domains, but web development has it particularly bad. For example compare iOS development vs web development.