6 ms·

> JavaScript is always changing. New libraries, new frameworks, new languages… It's part of the fun, No.. NO, it isn't.

by LandR 8y ago

justanegg 8y ago
Javascript-ecosystem more like.
gear54rus 8y ago
...yes it is?
- bacro 8y ago
  NO, it isn't...
- shangxiao 8y ago
  yeah nah…
- de_watcher 8y ago
  Using JS through time is like observing a freshman student who discovers new stuff in old books. Amusing, but we've got better things to do.
  - gear54rus 8y ago
    well it's certainly better than listening to ranting retrograde gramps "zomg new framework, I have to LEARN again :("
    - AllegedAlec 8y ago
      This is a fairly vacuous remark, if I'm frank. The problem isn't that you have to learn another framework (although it does become a problem when they're all slightly similar and they start to meld together after the umphteenth, not to mention that learning slows down with age). The problem is that each frameworks brings along new edge cases, new problems and forces you to reinvent tools you already had for this new framework. Although learning new shit can be exiting, at some point, you gotta stick to something for a while so you can also actually build a lasting product with it, rather than building a new prototype but never finishing anything because you're distracted by a new shiny.
      - gear54rus 8y ago
        No one forces you to learn anything new if you don't want to. People aren't stupid, if they invent new something (and pour shit ton of effort into it like with Vue or React) they probably have a good reason to (previous PITA first comes to mind). And anyone's "I don't want to learn" whining is in no way a reason to not invent that new something because that will actually slow down progress of tech field (which we can't have under any circumstance, this is the backbone of my argument). Get your act together or give way to those who will.
        wild_preference 8y ago
        Besides, client development is a cutting edge field. I'm sure glad we're advancing beyond the abstractions we have in, say, Cocoa development (which is evolving as well). Seems incredibly selfish to suggest that everyone is incompetent and nothing new is good because you don't want to have to learn new things. Yet somehow HNers convince themselves that it's scathing sociotechnological criticism of an ecosystem because we tolerate it for some reason. Meanwhile everyone would roll their eyes if you suggested something like "ugh, Objective-C replaced by Swift is like watching Apple read old books."
        bendmorris 8y ago
        > if they invent new something ... they probably have a good reason to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here Even if there were no reason at all, the bias toward writing things ourselves ensures that we'd continue to see these new frameworks.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    That's a fantastic analogy! I suppose the analogy in medicine would be to have this "medical hacker" mentality where you just go and do things, all the while learning. First you start with leeches, then you develop your own theory or four humours, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism, then you figure out there was this guy called Hippocrates who had lots of great ideas about medicine which you should totally read, but hey, who has the time nowadays, so you just skim through a blogpost with the summary of the most interesting tidbits. You keep hearing the name "Pasteur" and the "germ theory of disease" which sounds mildly intimidating. Instead, make your own plague doctor mask with a organic herbs as a safekeep. That'll keep the germs away. People think your plague doctor mask is really cool in instagram and you become moderately famous. People start asking medical advice from you. They keep mentioning something called "vaccines", which sounds really convenient. You read an obscure reference about primitive vaccination to smallpox and decide that's a great idea. You start scratching yourself with random things you find in the street to increase your "resistance" to all ills. You create a blog around this cool concept of "resistance" and invite other people to scratch themselves. Someone dies from infection and you say they just can't use the tool right.... etc. I presume the protagonist will eventually reach modern medicine if he's alive still, but it would be so much more convenient for all parties if he had become familiar with established standards before starting to share his ideas with the greater public.
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
I'm reminded of back in 1997 (maybe 98, anyway long time ago), I had been on a JavaScript course with a British guy, and went over to his house. He showed me the little cv site he'd been working on, it had quite a nice design, much better than I would ever do if asked to design something. I looked at the code - it was all tables, so I decided to show him CSS at the end of which he thunderously proclaimed "That's what's wrong with this industry, there's always something new to learn!" I think he's doing something with Sitecore now, make of that what you will.
- gagege 8y ago
  I think he kind of had a good point. It would be nice to have a single set of tools that can always get the job done no matter what.
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    yes that would be nice, but then lots of things that do not match reality would be nice.
    - gagege 8y ago
      The second step to making things better is to believe they can and should be improved. The first step is knowing that the current state of things is deficient in some way.
      - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
        I think the should be improved is implicit in the first step, does can be improved imply a suggestion - if not the third step is a suggestion, and it's that third step I'm always seeing problems in, not to mention the third step in a scenario of too much too learn runs into the XKCD standards problem https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
  - userbinator 8y ago
    Not long ago I had to write some JS (had to, not wanted to) to do something on a site, and got something working based on what I knew, only to be derided by a "real JS developer" that my code was "deprecated", "not following best practices", "not modern", etc. He gave me his version which was around 10x more code and only worked in a subset of the latest browsers, while mine not only did but would probably work in everything since maybe IE5 or so... Maybe that's considered a bug, but I don't want any of this trend-chasing. I write code to get things done. My users don't care, and they want to get things done too.
ilkkao 8y ago
Conclusion in the end is almost the opposite: > It looks like 2018 was mostly a continuation of the trends we already observed last year. > That's bad news for us, because we can't come out with a big scoop on how React's days are numbered, or the next big thing is this new state management library created by a 17-year-old Vietnamese high-schooler in her spare time. > But that's great news for you, because it means you can spend less time worrying about what to use, and more time actually using it!
Andrex 8y ago
Between the two ends of "language is never updated ever" and "language is updated to make developers extremely happy," I'm firmly in the latter.
Raphmedia 8y ago
Then stop learning the frameworks and start learning the core of the language. I got dizzy from all the options out there so I spent some time improving my knowledge of JavaScript itself instead of focusing on someone else's library. In the end, those frameworks are "nothing" but a lot of JavaScript patterns stuck together. Switching from one framework to another should't cause THAT much friction.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  The main problem with frameworks isn't the frameworks but the MBA's who finished reading "Lean In", congratulated themselves for finally finishing a whole chapter book, and set out to "conquer the world" under the assumption that developing software is trivial, and the fact that it's not done yet is because the programmers are lazy and stupid and aren't using the right frameworks, googled "good web frameworks" and forwarded the first link to the engineering organization with the title "FYI".
commandlinefan 8y ago
> > It's part of the fun, > No.. NO, it isn't. Well, it would be, and it should be, except for the unreasonable expectations from the "owners" who assume that everything they don't understand must be simple to do.

> JavaScript is always changing. New libraries, new frameworks, new languages… It's part of the fun, No.. NO, it isn't.

by LandR 8y ago

> JavaScript is always changing. New libraries, new frameworks, new languages… It's part of the fun, No.. NO, it isn't.

justanegg 8y ago

Javascript-ecosystem more like.

gear54rus 8y ago

...yes it is?

bacro 8y ago
NO, it isn't...
shangxiao 8y ago
yeah nah…
de_watcher 8y ago
Using JS through time is like observing a freshman student who discovers new stuff in old books. Amusing, but we've got better things to do.
- gear54rus 8y ago
  well it's certainly better than listening to ranting retrograde gramps "zomg new framework, I have to LEARN again :("
  - AllegedAlec 8y ago
    This is a fairly vacuous remark, if I'm frank. The problem isn't that you have to learn another framework (although it does become a problem when they're all slightly similar and they start to meld together after the umphteenth, not to mention that learning slows down with age). The problem is that each frameworks brings along new edge cases, new problems and forces you to reinvent tools you already had for this new framework. Although learning new shit can be exiting, at some point, you gotta stick to something for a while so you can also actually build a lasting product with it, rather than building a new prototype but never finishing anything because you're distracted by a new shiny.
    - gear54rus 8y ago
      No one forces you to learn anything new if you don't want to. People aren't stupid, if they invent new something (and pour shit ton of effort into it like with Vue or React) they probably have a good reason to (previous PITA first comes to mind). And anyone's "I don't want to learn" whining is in no way a reason to not invent that new something because that will actually slow down progress of tech field (which we can't have under any circumstance, this is the backbone of my argument). Get your act together or give way to those who will.
      - wild_preference 8y ago
        Besides, client development is a cutting edge field. I'm sure glad we're advancing beyond the abstractions we have in, say, Cocoa development (which is evolving as well). Seems incredibly selfish to suggest that everyone is incompetent and nothing new is good because you don't want to have to learn new things. Yet somehow HNers convince themselves that it's scathing sociotechnological criticism of an ecosystem because we tolerate it for some reason. Meanwhile everyone would roll their eyes if you suggested something like "ugh, Objective-C replaced by Swift is like watching Apple read old books."
      - bendmorris 8y ago
        > if they invent new something ... they probably have a good reason to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here Even if there were no reason at all, the bias toward writing things ourselves ensures that we'd continue to see these new frameworks.
- fsloth 8y ago
  That's a fantastic analogy! I suppose the analogy in medicine would be to have this "medical hacker" mentality where you just go and do things, all the while learning. First you start with leeches, then you develop your own theory or four humours, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism, then you figure out there was this guy called Hippocrates who had lots of great ideas about medicine which you should totally read, but hey, who has the time nowadays, so you just skim through a blogpost with the summary of the most interesting tidbits. You keep hearing the name "Pasteur" and the "germ theory of disease" which sounds mildly intimidating. Instead, make your own plague doctor mask with a organic herbs as a safekeep. That'll keep the germs away. People think your plague doctor mask is really cool in instagram and you become moderately famous. People start asking medical advice from you. They keep mentioning something called "vaccines", which sounds really convenient. You read an obscure reference about primitive vaccination to smallpox and decide that's a great idea. You start scratching yourself with random things you find in the street to increase your "resistance" to all ills. You create a blog around this cool concept of "resistance" and invite other people to scratch themselves. Someone dies from infection and you say they just can't use the tool right.... etc. I presume the protagonist will eventually reach modern medicine if he's alive still, but it would be so much more convenient for all parties if he had become familiar with established standards before starting to share his ideas with the greater public.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

I'm reminded of back in 1997 (maybe 98, anyway long time ago), I had been on a JavaScript course with a British guy, and went over to his house. He showed me the little cv site he'd been working on, it had quite a nice design, much better than I would ever do if asked to design something. I looked at the code - it was all tables, so I decided to show him CSS at the end of which he thunderously proclaimed "That's what's wrong with this industry, there's always something new to learn!" I think he's doing something with Sitecore now, make of that what you will.

gagege 8y ago
I think he kind of had a good point. It would be nice to have a single set of tools that can always get the job done no matter what.
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  yes that would be nice, but then lots of things that do not match reality would be nice.
  - gagege 8y ago
    The second step to making things better is to believe they can and should be improved. The first step is knowing that the current state of things is deficient in some way.
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      I think the should be improved is implicit in the first step, does can be improved imply a suggestion - if not the third step is a suggestion, and it's that third step I'm always seeing problems in, not to mention the third step in a scenario of too much too learn runs into the XKCD standards problem https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- userbinator 8y ago
  Not long ago I had to write some JS (had to, not wanted to) to do something on a site, and got something working based on what I knew, only to be derided by a "real JS developer" that my code was "deprecated", "not following best practices", "not modern", etc. He gave me his version which was around 10x more code and only worked in a subset of the latest browsers, while mine not only did but would probably work in everything since maybe IE5 or so... Maybe that's considered a bug, but I don't want any of this trend-chasing. I write code to get things done. My users don't care, and they want to get things done too.

ilkkao 8y ago

Conclusion in the end is almost the opposite: > It looks like 2018 was mostly a continuation of the trends we already observed last year. > That's bad news for us, because we can't come out with a big scoop on how React's days are numbered, or the next big thing is this new state management library created by a 17-year-old Vietnamese high-schooler in her spare time. > But that's great news for you, because it means you can spend less time worrying about what to use, and more time actually using it!

Andrex 8y ago

Between the two ends of "language is never updated ever" and "language is updated to make developers extremely happy," I'm firmly in the latter.

Raphmedia 8y ago

Then stop learning the frameworks and start learning the core of the language. I got dizzy from all the options out there so I spent some time improving my knowledge of JavaScript itself instead of focusing on someone else's library. In the end, those frameworks are "nothing" but a lot of JavaScript patterns stuck together. Switching from one framework to another should't cause THAT much friction.

commandlinefan 8y ago
The main problem with frameworks isn't the frameworks but the MBA's who finished reading "Lean In", congratulated themselves for finally finishing a whole chapter book, and set out to "conquer the world" under the assumption that developing software is trivial, and the fact that it's not done yet is because the programmers are lazy and stupid and aren't using the right frameworks, googled "good web frameworks" and forwarded the first link to the engineering organization with the title "FYI".

commandlinefan 8y ago

> > It's part of the fun, > No.. NO, it isn't. Well, it would be, and it should be, except for the unreasonable expectations from the "owners" who assume that everything they don't understand must be simple to do.