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> Put yourself in the shoes of a junior-to-mid-level JavaScript developer, writing a new application for the first time. > But how could you do better, Junior

> Put yourself in the shoes of a junior-to-mid-level JavaScript developer, writing a new application for the first time. > But how could you do better, Junior Developer? Who was there to guide you? The Senior Developers, too, are learning as they go. We’re caught in this avalanche too, just trying to keep up to date and remain employable. No, this is exactly the problem: junior developers making major architecture decisions unassisted. The "senior" developer who is "caught in the avalanche" isn't senior by any reasonable definition of the word. Development in general, and, it seems, front end web development in particular, is both easy and hard. Somewhere between batteries-included frameworks, blogs, YouTube channels and MOOCs, it's very easy to get from zero to something good looking and more or less functional pretty quickly. But this can easily hide the complexity that pretty quickly creeps in, and reasoning about complexity is one of the crucial things that a senior developer brings to the table.

kotrunga 8y ago
> But this can easily hide the complexity that pretty quickly creeps in, and reasoning about complexity is one of the crucial things that a senior developer brings to the table. Yes- so true. Taking a web app / whatever from the beginning stages to handle proper complexity, anything from scaling to ... the business wanting cough forcing cough a "quick fix".
michaelbuckbee 8y ago
We're missing the context here. For many (most?) web apps I feel like things have kind of gone wrong if the front end requires "major architectural decisions". That's not a knock against the greatness of React, etc. so much as it's my observation that most web apps are small and from a technical standpoint quite boring, a smattering of static pages, a couple web forms, etc.
jillav 8y ago
Yes exactly. Building something fast without understanding the complexity behind can be both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing for the one who needs to deliver. It's a curse for the one who needs to learn. To be efficient in the long term, and not get lost among the framework wars, one must use what was learned in Engineering School, University or from seniors : write specs, set priorities, plan ahead. Use or build the tool that suits your need, do not follow trends. Think like an engineer.

kotrunga 8y ago

> But this can easily hide the complexity that pretty quickly creeps in, and reasoning about complexity is one of the crucial things that a senior developer brings to the table. Yes- so true. Taking a web app / whatever from the beginning stages to handle proper complexity, anything from scaling to ... the business wanting cough forcing cough a "quick fix".

michaelbuckbee 8y ago

We're missing the context here. For many (most?) web apps I feel like things have kind of gone wrong if the front end requires "major architectural decisions". That's not a knock against the greatness of React, etc. so much as it's my observation that most web apps are small and from a technical standpoint quite boring, a smattering of static pages, a couple web forms, etc.

jillav 8y ago

Yes exactly. Building something fast without understanding the complexity behind can be both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing for the one who needs to deliver. It's a curse for the one who needs to learn. To be efficient in the long term, and not get lost among the framework wars, one must use what was learned in Engineering School, University or from seniors : write specs, set priorities, plan ahead. Use or build the tool that suits your need, do not follow trends. Think like an engineer.