4 ms·

Like the author pointed out, many of the new "solutions" are just the same old solutions in a new wrapper. There may be edge cases that the new solutions helps

Like the author pointed out, many of the new "solutions" are just the same old solutions in a new wrapper. There may be edge cases that the new solutions helps with that the old solution couldn't handle, but that begs the question, why didn't we just improve the old tool instead of making a brand new one? This leads to a lot of outside pressures that fall upon developers/companies who are trying to stay relevant in the field. When everyone around you is moving to "B", do you want to be the one that is still using "A" because it works just fine? Do you want to risk being irrelevant in a few years to prove your point? Naturally, many people don't want to take that risk, and so they go on learning the new technology even though it's not really necessary for 95% of developers, and they start using it in their new projects and they get comfortable with it and then the whole cycle starts again.

root_axis 9y ago
> Like the author pointed out, many of the new "solutions" are just the same old solutions in a new wrapper Nothing is new under the sun, something old becomes something new in a different context in a different time, same thing happens in music and fiction... so what? > There may be edge cases that the new solutions helps with that the old solution couldn't handle It's pretty condescending to reduce the work of many smart and passionate programmers down to "a bunch of edge cases". People put real work and thought into these projects based on their professional experiences and it's depressing to me that others can be so cynical that they're unwilling to imagine that maybe there's something they aren't seeing about why so many of their colleagues are excited about what these tools make possible. > but that begs the question, why didn't we just improve the old tool instead of making a brand new one? Setting aside the clearly obvious reasons why we don't (and can't, and often aren't welcome to) contribute to existing tools rather rather than roll our own - who is worthy enough to determine which projects deserve eternal tribute and which projects are allowed to even exist? Your question is absurd. Why don't all these hugely popular tools with active open source communities just disappear? Umm, why should they have to? Why don't all the people who have a problem with it disappear back to a world where they can manipulate individual DOM nodes to match their application state with imperative instructions... you know, the present world they live in right now? > This leads to a lot of outside pressures that fall upon developers/companies who are trying to stay relevant in the field I'm not understanding the complaint. "Pressure to stay relevant in the field" sounds a lot like "keeping up with advances in the field". I understand you don't agree that they are advances, but a lot of people disagree, including many individuals leading companies and organizations highly regarded for their engineering talent. > When everyone around you is moving to "B", do you want to be the one that is still using "A" because it works just fine? Do you want to risk being irrelevant in a few years to prove your point? If you're tasked with the responsibility of deciding which technologies are the most appropriate choices for a project and you decide to pick "B" because it's popular, rather than "A" because its a tool that you understand and claim is "just as good" as "B", YOU are to blame; by your own logic you're just giving yourself an intentional handicap so you can look cool. > Naturally, many people don't want to take that risk, and so they go on learning the new technology even though it's not really necessary for 95% of developers Who's to say what 95% of developers need? Some would say 95% of developers don't need javascript at all, so I guess that settles that.
- mitchdoogle 9y ago
  You claimed that people who complain about these new tools either don't understand and are confused and/or entitled. I find those comments misguided. Your rebuttals to my post are valid, but I think you're still missing the main point of the original article. I'm not trying to argue that new tools shouldn't be created, and I'm certainly not suggesting that their creators are not passionate or hardworking, so I was wrong to say that we should just improve the old tools. But it is worth questioning who should be using these tools - should the way everyone makes websites completely change because someone created a new framework or tool? There are always going to be new sites that push the limit of technology and will need new tools to get there. For sites like the author of that article creates though, which are often described as "brochure websites", those tools simply aren't needed, and yet there is conforming pressure within the community that pushes developers to make sites like that using the new tools, which is overkill and can turn something simple into something complex. If you're the person responsible for choosing these things, you will eventually face that pressure. If you're not responsible, you may not even have a choice. You can't pretend that people conform to social pressures.
  - root_axis 9y ago
    > For sites like the author of that article creates though, which are often described as "brochure websites", those tools simply aren't needed, and yet there is conforming pressure within the community that pushes developers to make sites like that using the new tools, which is overkill and can turn something simple into something complex. I understand what you're saying, but the bottom line is that "the conforming pressure" is illusory. At the end of the day the engineering team must deliver a product that works to specification and is not difficult to maintain, that is the only real pressure, there is no rational justification for choosing a tool that is less likely to accomplish that goal when a suitable one already exists. If someone is in charge of building a "brochure website" and they select a complicated SPA pipeline with many build steps as the solution then they are objectively doing the wrong thing and that's the end of the story, nothing in that scenario reflects on any aspect of the actual tools. > You can't pretend that people conform to social pressures. I don't, but those people are the problem, not the tool.

root_axis 9y ago

> Like the author pointed out, many of the new "solutions" are just the same old solutions in a new wrapper Nothing is new under the sun, something old becomes something new in a different context in a different time, same thing happens in music and fiction... so what? > There may be edge cases that the new solutions helps with that the old solution couldn't handle It's pretty condescending to reduce the work of many smart and passionate programmers down to "a bunch of edge cases". People put real work and thought into these projects based on their professional experiences and it's depressing to me that others can be so cynical that they're unwilling to imagine that maybe there's something they aren't seeing about why so many of their colleagues are excited about what these tools make possible. > but that begs the question, why didn't we just improve the old tool instead of making a brand new one? Setting aside the clearly obvious reasons why we don't (and can't, and often aren't welcome to) contribute to existing tools rather rather than roll our own - who is worthy enough to determine which projects deserve eternal tribute and which projects are allowed to even exist? Your question is absurd. Why don't all these hugely popular tools with active open source communities just disappear? Umm, why should they have to? Why don't all the people who have a problem with it disappear back to a world where they can manipulate individual DOM nodes to match their application state with imperative instructions... you know, the present world they live in right now? > This leads to a lot of outside pressures that fall upon developers/companies who are trying to stay relevant in the field I'm not understanding the complaint. "Pressure to stay relevant in the field" sounds a lot like "keeping up with advances in the field". I understand you don't agree that they are advances, but a lot of people disagree, including many individuals leading companies and organizations highly regarded for their engineering talent. > When everyone around you is moving to "B", do you want to be the one that is still using "A" because it works just fine? Do you want to risk being irrelevant in a few years to prove your point? If you're tasked with the responsibility of deciding which technologies are the most appropriate choices for a project and you decide to pick "B" because it's popular, rather than "A" because its a tool that you understand and claim is "just as good" as "B", YOU are to blame; by your own logic you're just giving yourself an intentional handicap so you can look cool. > Naturally, many people don't want to take that risk, and so they go on learning the new technology even though it's not really necessary for 95% of developers Who's to say what 95% of developers need? Some would say 95% of developers don't need javascript at all, so I guess that settles that.

mitchdoogle 9y ago
You claimed that people who complain about these new tools either don't understand and are confused and/or entitled. I find those comments misguided. Your rebuttals to my post are valid, but I think you're still missing the main point of the original article. I'm not trying to argue that new tools shouldn't be created, and I'm certainly not suggesting that their creators are not passionate or hardworking, so I was wrong to say that we should just improve the old tools. But it is worth questioning who should be using these tools - should the way everyone makes websites completely change because someone created a new framework or tool? There are always going to be new sites that push the limit of technology and will need new tools to get there. For sites like the author of that article creates though, which are often described as "brochure websites", those tools simply aren't needed, and yet there is conforming pressure within the community that pushes developers to make sites like that using the new tools, which is overkill and can turn something simple into something complex. If you're the person responsible for choosing these things, you will eventually face that pressure. If you're not responsible, you may not even have a choice. You can't pretend that people conform to social pressures.
- root_axis 9y ago
  > For sites like the author of that article creates though, which are often described as "brochure websites", those tools simply aren't needed, and yet there is conforming pressure within the community that pushes developers to make sites like that using the new tools, which is overkill and can turn something simple into something complex. I understand what you're saying, but the bottom line is that "the conforming pressure" is illusory. At the end of the day the engineering team must deliver a product that works to specification and is not difficult to maintain, that is the only real pressure, there is no rational justification for choosing a tool that is less likely to accomplish that goal when a suitable one already exists. If someone is in charge of building a "brochure website" and they select a complicated SPA pipeline with many build steps as the solution then they are objectively doing the wrong thing and that's the end of the story, nothing in that scenario reflects on any aspect of the actual tools. > You can't pretend that people conform to social pressures. I don't, but those people are the problem, not the tool.