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I agree in broad terms, but as a counterpoint, those build pipelines are being created and used primarily by folks who initially learned by handwriting javascri

I agree in broad terms, but as a counterpoint, those build pipelines are being created and used primarily by folks who initially learned by handwriting javascript. While less of a consideration for established teams, it dramatically raises the barrier to entry for those who are learning as well as those who currently have much simpler requirements. Those are the future members of that established team. Adding hurdles to the process of learning will, in the long run, result in a smaller, more homogeneous pool of experienced developers to draw upon. It's a self-perpetuating cycle - making folks learn by using complex build scripts will result in experienced developers who then create further complexity because they've self-selected to be those who happen to think in that mode. That's not intended to suggest that progress is bad. Rather that it's a bit short-sighted of us, as an industry, not to consider the ramifications of enforcing a workflow that happens to be trivial from the limited perspective of long time front end developers. { Edit to try to make the last paragraph sound less accusatory. Sorry! That wasn't my intention. }

brlewis 7y ago
There are tools like create-react-app that configure complicated build pipelines for you, and there's parcel, a simple common-case build pipeline.
- irrational 7y ago
  The biggest issue I've seen with these is that at some point they do break and then you need a knowledgeable person to fix it. The pipeline is basically a black box unless you possess the knowledge of how all the parts work and interact with each other.
  - eropple 7y ago
    I dunno how to put this in a non-controversial way, but...at some point, I switched from thinking a desirable, throw-the-money-at-them developer is somebody who writes a lot of code to somebody who understands things and is capable of understanding new ones when they arise. I'm not saying that to excuse thrash. Thrash is bad. But like..."oh, at some point you'll have to have somebody who actually understands how the thing we use to make money works"--you should have that person anyway! It's an existential threat to your business not to. Understanding things is our job. Unless you're somewhere where understanding things isn't valued, and 1) it's gonna eventually fail, and 2) you have better places to be.
    - andybak 7y ago
      > somebody who understands things and is capable of understanding new ones when they arise. Some of us won't let go of the crazy dream that things should be simpler. I want this not because I'm lazy or because I don't understand them but because - dammit - things should be simpler.
      - eropple 7y ago
        Complex things are complex. Attempting to simplify complex systems below this threshold of complexity invariably ends in lost capability or lost fingers when the sharp edge you didn't know was there sneaks up on you. And web browsers are very complex beasts by design, by accretion, and by necessity. Sorry, I guess. Does bemoaning it actually help anything?
        andybak 7y ago
        But we're not talking about web browsers per se - we're talking about the javascript ecosystem. The complexity of which is only indirectly related to that of the browser.
- LukeBMM 7y ago
  Again, just for the sake of playing Devil's Advocate, the fact that we rely entirely upon such helpers (and the overwhelming number of mutually exclusive options available) is a potential indicator that we're making it more complex than we have to[1]. The syntactic sugar that we're adding to make our own jobs easier is arguably making things disproportionately more difficult for anyone who doesn't already have the same baseline level of knowledge. That includes those who are trying to learn to do our jobs after we've all moved on. That would notably have also included all of us, earlier in our careers. I'm just suggesting that it's worth considering whether that seems sustainable in the long run. [1] ... for relatively simple tasks. Complex tooling happens to be a very good tool for complex tasks, like the sort of professional work that you seem to be referring to. No matter how good our hammer may be, however, not every task always wants to be a nail. create-react-app and parcel are examples of excellent hammers.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    The main complex task that's being addressed is making JavaScript that runs on a variety of browsers, not just the latest Firefox. I'm afraid I don't know what you have in mind as far as syntactic sugar that makes things harder for learners. Every new syntax I can think of makes JS easier to learn and use.

brlewis 7y ago

There are tools like create-react-app that configure complicated build pipelines for you, and there's parcel, a simple common-case build pipeline.

irrational 7y ago
The biggest issue I've seen with these is that at some point they do break and then you need a knowledgeable person to fix it. The pipeline is basically a black box unless you possess the knowledge of how all the parts work and interact with each other.
- eropple 7y ago
  I dunno how to put this in a non-controversial way, but...at some point, I switched from thinking a desirable, throw-the-money-at-them developer is somebody who writes a lot of code to somebody who understands things and is capable of understanding new ones when they arise. I'm not saying that to excuse thrash. Thrash is bad. But like..."oh, at some point you'll have to have somebody who actually understands how the thing we use to make money works"--you should have that person anyway! It's an existential threat to your business not to. Understanding things is our job. Unless you're somewhere where understanding things isn't valued, and 1) it's gonna eventually fail, and 2) you have better places to be.
  - andybak 7y ago
    > somebody who understands things and is capable of understanding new ones when they arise. Some of us won't let go of the crazy dream that things should be simpler. I want this not because I'm lazy or because I don't understand them but because - dammit - things should be simpler.
    - eropple 7y ago
      Complex things are complex. Attempting to simplify complex systems below this threshold of complexity invariably ends in lost capability or lost fingers when the sharp edge you didn't know was there sneaks up on you. And web browsers are very complex beasts by design, by accretion, and by necessity. Sorry, I guess. Does bemoaning it actually help anything?
      - andybak 7y ago
        But we're not talking about web browsers per se - we're talking about the javascript ecosystem. The complexity of which is only indirectly related to that of the browser.
LukeBMM 7y ago
Again, just for the sake of playing Devil's Advocate, the fact that we rely entirely upon such helpers (and the overwhelming number of mutually exclusive options available) is a potential indicator that we're making it more complex than we have to[1]. The syntactic sugar that we're adding to make our own jobs easier is arguably making things disproportionately more difficult for anyone who doesn't already have the same baseline level of knowledge. That includes those who are trying to learn to do our jobs after we've all moved on. That would notably have also included all of us, earlier in our careers. I'm just suggesting that it's worth considering whether that seems sustainable in the long run. [1] ... for relatively simple tasks. Complex tooling happens to be a very good tool for complex tasks, like the sort of professional work that you seem to be referring to. No matter how good our hammer may be, however, not every task always wants to be a nail. create-react-app and parcel are examples of excellent hammers.
- brlewis 7y ago
  The main complex task that's being addressed is making JavaScript that runs on a variety of browsers, not just the latest Firefox. I'm afraid I don't know what you have in mind as far as syntactic sugar that makes things harder for learners. Every new syntax I can think of makes JS easier to learn and use.