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Omg, so this guy thinks he knows why I'm hating Javascript? Well, it's definitely not because of the lack of types, or because without Prettier my code looks sh

by twii 9y ago

Omg, so this guy thinks he knows why I'm hating Javascript? Well, it's definitely not because of the lack of types, or because without Prettier my code looks shit, neither would it be the lack of E6/ES7 features since I'm using Coffeescript 2. No, I hate Javascript especially for it's conitnuously changing ecosystem being forced upon you. You named Dan Abramov? Ah, the guy who deprecated almost all flux in favor of his own idea (Redux), or by deprecating React Mixins, because he thinks Mixins are bad, Higher Order Components is the new holy grail? If I am looking for a job as a Javasript developer at the moment it is not about my coding skills, it is about my willingness to adopt all those hyped technologies, and the author of this article is just making it worse. I also hate Javascript for all those people reading this that think I don't understand it yet, and are going to explain me how great ES6/ES7, Promises, and/or Typescript are. Please don't.

whostolemyhat 9y ago
Well, if you don't like learning then you can still use DHTML like it's 2003
alixander 9y ago
If your only reason to hate a language is that it's making improvements (that you can't/won't keep up with), it would seem that language is doing something right
- gkya 9y ago
  It's not that it's improving, it's that it's changing in every direction at light speed, and if you say went on holiday for a month offline when you come back the odds that you find the syntax and the ecosystem substantially different is very high. And whether all or most of these changes are indeed improving anything is doubtful. I personally can't follow JS anymore, it's a storm of not-so-news from every direction.
  - tracker1 9y ago
    Since ES6/2015 the changes have been pretty minimal, so I disagree with your assertion. Since 2015 I find that async functions is probably the most alien addition... and the handful of others that are significant are mostly ignored or very natural extensions. The shift from callbacks to promises is kind of alien, but frankly that was started well before 2015 even. The .babelrc I use for node projects is pretty simple as well, here's one I use for an AWS Lambda build... { "presets": [ [ "env", { "loose": true, "targets": { "node": "6.10.3" } } ] ], "plugins": [ "syntax-dynamic-import", "syntax-object-rest-spread", "syntax-async-generators", "transform-class-properties", "transform-decorators-legacy", "transform-object-rest-spread", "transform-async-to-generator" ] } So that's literally 3 things that aren't in spec yet, and a couple that work around the runtime not having them. Most of what's going in is already in, or relatively well established and on the way. Now, you do have to include a lot more if you want IE11 support, but hey, that's a different thing. I'm not sure what exactly you're having a trouble wrapping your head around.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pluma 9y ago
> If I am looking for a job as a Javasript developer at the moment it is not about my coding skills, it is about my willingness to adopt all those hyped technologies If you're looking for a job as a developer I hope it's always about your ability to adopt to changes and new technologies. Because that's what distinguishes a developer from somebody's "nephew who's really good with computers" and is willing to work for scraps. Any formal education worth its salt is about giving you that ability rather than just teaching you the status quo. If you want a stable ecosystem that doesn't change, try specializing in legacy technologies. There's still a ton of software written in languages that are well past their prime and large companies will pay good money for people willing and capable of working on that. Maybe you should stay away from JavaScript for the next 20 years and come back when people consider it quaint and archaic and don't try to apply new ideas to it anymore. This isn't hyperbole, this is an honest suggestion.
- blub 9y ago
  Sure, but adapting as a JS developer is mostly about relearning how to do the same thing using different libraries and frameworks. As an embedded developer I am able to build upon my existing knowledge and am deepening my skills in embedded, Linux, C++, etc. I'm not learning new programming languages and operating systems every couple of months. And this is how it should be, otherwise you'll end up being always average, no matter how much you learn.
  - slfnflctd 9y ago
    > relearning how to do the same thing using different libraries and frameworks This is hell to me, such nausea-inducing inefficiency. I feel like I'm wasting my time and cluttering my brain needlessly in those scenarios and it drives me mad. What if you were a woodworker and every few months all the tools and equipment in your shop changed in various subtle ways? It makes very little sense to me in the long run. True mastery depends upon some amount of consistency in your environment. It's the only way you can build on what you knew before (because it didn't change when you weren't looking) to do more complex and interesting things.
pluma 9y ago
> Ah, the guy who deprecated almost all flux in favor of his own idea (Redux), or by deprecating React Mixins, because he thinks Mixins are bad, Higher Order Components is the new holy grail? How dare the man spend hours and months creating something others ended up finding so valuable they discarded their own things. If you really prefer the bug-inducing mess that were mixins, you can still use React.createClass (with full mixin support) by using the react-create-class module: https://yarnpkg.com/en/package/create-react-class https://yarnpkg.com/en/package/create-react-class Which, by the way, is maintained by the same people you are so upset with. For changing their mind about the API of something they gave you for free.
mattacular 9y ago
You don't have to use any of the gobs of new JS syntax, libearies, frameworks, techniques, packagers etc that come out on a regular basis. Just keep that in mind when you're reading about them and realize you can decide for yourself what to adopt after careful evaluation. Exception being if you work on a team that has agreed to adopt something new together. If you're of a different opinion and lost the debate you pretty much have two options at that point!
root_axis 9y ago
Huh? Why is this a problem? Just use what you like, all the old techniques still work, you could use jquery if you like, nobody's stopping you.
lopatin 9y ago
You sound quite fatigued! Here's what I suggest: - Uninstall webpack for a month - Download the few libraries that you can't live without * Put them in a script tag - Disconnect from HN and Twitter. Better yet, the internet all together. - Finish whatever you're working on in peace, and save Abramov & friends from your thoughts about how inconvenient technological progress is for you.
- na85 9y ago
  You've conflated needless churn with progress. They're not the same thing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - lopatin 9y ago
    You've somehow managed to put down the hard work of community leaders from your hind-sight high horse, and at the same time, disown responsibility for the choice of library/language your software was built on. Implying the fault is on them for doing their best to push the community forward, rather than on you for shipping software built on presumably new, unproven, and highly volatile foundations. Impressive, sir.
    - na85 9y ago
      I guess we just disagree on what constitutes pushing the community forward. I don't write javascript software, I merely have to experience the pain of using it.
acemarke 9y ago
Dan created Redux as a proof of concept experiment for a conference talk. I'm sure he did actually want people to use it, but based on comments he's made, he definitely had no idea it would became the de-facto standard state management tool for React apps. Frankly, he's spent more time telling people _not_ to use Redux if it doesn't fit their use cases than actually trying to advertise the library.
vinylkey 9y ago
> because without Prettier my code looks shit Prettier is a cool tool, but it's pretty trivial to press enter and tab every once and a while to format your own code.

by twii 9y ago

whostolemyhat 9y ago

Well, if you don't like learning then you can still use DHTML like it's 2003

alixander 9y ago

If your only reason to hate a language is that it's making improvements (that you can't/won't keep up with), it would seem that language is doing something right

gkya 9y ago
It's not that it's improving, it's that it's changing in every direction at light speed, and if you say went on holiday for a month offline when you come back the odds that you find the syntax and the ecosystem substantially different is very high. And whether all or most of these changes are indeed improving anything is doubtful. I personally can't follow JS anymore, it's a storm of not-so-news from every direction.
- tracker1 9y ago
  Since ES6/2015 the changes have been pretty minimal, so I disagree with your assertion. Since 2015 I find that async functions is probably the most alien addition... and the handful of others that are significant are mostly ignored or very natural extensions. The shift from callbacks to promises is kind of alien, but frankly that was started well before 2015 even. The .babelrc I use for node projects is pretty simple as well, here's one I use for an AWS Lambda build... { "presets": [ [ "env", { "loose": true, "targets": { "node": "6.10.3" } } ] ], "plugins": [ "syntax-dynamic-import", "syntax-object-rest-spread", "syntax-async-generators", "transform-class-properties", "transform-decorators-legacy", "transform-object-rest-spread", "transform-async-to-generator" ] } So that's literally 3 things that aren't in spec yet, and a couple that work around the runtime not having them. Most of what's going in is already in, or relatively well established and on the way. Now, you do have to include a lot more if you want IE11 support, but hey, that's a different thing. I'm not sure what exactly you're having a trouble wrapping your head around.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pluma 9y ago

> If I am looking for a job as a Javasript developer at the moment it is not about my coding skills, it is about my willingness to adopt all those hyped technologies If you're looking for a job as a developer I hope it's always about your ability to adopt to changes and new technologies. Because that's what distinguishes a developer from somebody's "nephew who's really good with computers" and is willing to work for scraps. Any formal education worth its salt is about giving you that ability rather than just teaching you the status quo. If you want a stable ecosystem that doesn't change, try specializing in legacy technologies. There's still a ton of software written in languages that are well past their prime and large companies will pay good money for people willing and capable of working on that. Maybe you should stay away from JavaScript for the next 20 years and come back when people consider it quaint and archaic and don't try to apply new ideas to it anymore. This isn't hyperbole, this is an honest suggestion.

blub 9y ago
Sure, but adapting as a JS developer is mostly about relearning how to do the same thing using different libraries and frameworks. As an embedded developer I am able to build upon my existing knowledge and am deepening my skills in embedded, Linux, C++, etc. I'm not learning new programming languages and operating systems every couple of months. And this is how it should be, otherwise you'll end up being always average, no matter how much you learn.
- slfnflctd 9y ago
  > relearning how to do the same thing using different libraries and frameworks This is hell to me, such nausea-inducing inefficiency. I feel like I'm wasting my time and cluttering my brain needlessly in those scenarios and it drives me mad. What if you were a woodworker and every few months all the tools and equipment in your shop changed in various subtle ways? It makes very little sense to me in the long run. True mastery depends upon some amount of consistency in your environment. It's the only way you can build on what you knew before (because it didn't change when you weren't looking) to do more complex and interesting things.

pluma 9y ago

> Ah, the guy who deprecated almost all flux in favor of his own idea (Redux), or by deprecating React Mixins, because he thinks Mixins are bad, Higher Order Components is the new holy grail? How dare the man spend hours and months creating something others ended up finding so valuable they discarded their own things. If you really prefer the bug-inducing mess that were mixins, you can still use React.createClass (with full mixin support) by using the react-create-class module: https://yarnpkg.com/en/package/create-react-class https://yarnpkg.com/en/package/create-react-class Which, by the way, is maintained by the same people you are so upset with. For changing their mind about the API of something they gave you for free.

mattacular 9y ago

You don't have to use any of the gobs of new JS syntax, libearies, frameworks, techniques, packagers etc that come out on a regular basis. Just keep that in mind when you're reading about them and realize you can decide for yourself what to adopt after careful evaluation. Exception being if you work on a team that has agreed to adopt something new together. If you're of a different opinion and lost the debate you pretty much have two options at that point!

root_axis 9y ago

Huh? Why is this a problem? Just use what you like, all the old techniques still work, you could use jquery if you like, nobody's stopping you.

lopatin 9y ago

You sound quite fatigued! Here's what I suggest: - Uninstall webpack for a month - Download the few libraries that you can't live without * Put them in a script tag - Disconnect from HN and Twitter. Better yet, the internet all together. - Finish whatever you're working on in peace, and save Abramov & friends from your thoughts about how inconvenient technological progress is for you.

na85 9y ago
You've conflated needless churn with progress. They're not the same thing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lopatin 9y ago
  You've somehow managed to put down the hard work of community leaders from your hind-sight high horse, and at the same time, disown responsibility for the choice of library/language your software was built on. Implying the fault is on them for doing their best to push the community forward, rather than on you for shipping software built on presumably new, unproven, and highly volatile foundations. Impressive, sir.
  - na85 9y ago
    I guess we just disagree on what constitutes pushing the community forward. I don't write javascript software, I merely have to experience the pain of using it.

acemarke 9y ago

Dan created Redux as a proof of concept experiment for a conference talk. I'm sure he did actually want people to use it, but based on comments he's made, he definitely had no idea it would became the de-facto standard state management tool for React apps. Frankly, he's spent more time telling people _not_ to use Redux if it doesn't fit their use cases than actually trying to advertise the library.

vinylkey 9y ago

> because without Prettier my code looks shit Prettier is a cool tool, but it's pretty trivial to press enter and tab every once and a while to format your own code.