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But do we get it? If we get it, why is frontend churn so prevalent? I don’t think we get it.

by runawaybottle 6y ago

duxup 6y ago
Get what?
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Resume driven development bad.
christophilus 6y ago
Is front end churn really so prevalent? I hear this opinion all the time, but React is 7 years old. I've been using it for around 5 years, I think. Redux is 5 years old. How old does the most popular web framework need to be before we consider it to be low churn? [Edit: Also, anecdote: before JS, I was mostly a C# developer, and the churn there was at least as bad, maybe worse in my personal experience. Over 15 years of my career, I had to learn ASP, then ASP.NET, and in the Windows app world, we went from WinForms to XAML, then .NET Core came out, and things shifted again... See Rails' history for more examples of churn. It's not like every other platform is a paragon of stability. Clojure is a bulwark of stability compared to just about anything else, but it's hardly fair to hold the front-end community up against that gold standard...]
- quxbar 6y ago
  JS has always been relevant as an ecosystem because it incorporates new ideas. I liked jQuery more than what came before it, and I like React more than jQuery. They make the task of translating an idea into a work app much easier for me, and other programmers I work with also benefit from more readable code. I wouldn't re-write an existing app to use fetch or hooks, but now that I've taken the time to learn, I'm happy I did. The vast majority of the mental work was done by other people, and I get to reap the benefits. The alternative to this is stagnation, and relegation to legacy systems... I guess the author wishes they could work in COBOL?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I’m not sure if you realize your own paradox. Is churn really so prevalent? You then point out how prevalent it is in the .NET community. Yeah it’s prevalent, and if we resemble other shitty ecosystems then we need to introspect.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    I do realize it. Maybe I should have added: churn as compared to what? JS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Most language ecosystems experience churn. I explicitly mentioned we shouldn’t hold everyone to the gold standard of stability that is Clojure. But... maybe we should? I’m not entirely sure that churn is a binary good or bad. When you think, “Hm I have a more elegant solution to this common problem.” And then offer it to the world, you’ll be shot down with “churn” comments. Churn is way we experience experimentation and the slow progress towards a better solution. I, for one, am glad I no longer have to program COBOL. Anyway, there’s probably a happy medium. Even Clojure has had some front-end churn. Om is no longer the hotness. Reframe seems to have won. Clojure itself isn’t that old.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      I’m waiting for the day I can enter a dot net C# codebase the same way you can enter frontend. None of you make your own landscape easy to enter, and I’m certainly not open to you guys dictating anything in this realm. We have frontend churn, we are working on it. You didn’t work on dot net churn while it was occurring, and you show up with the same attitude before the apex on front end. You couldn’t stop it once, and you’re here to enable the next? If you know how to stop it, talk. Otherwise stay out of it. We’re trying not to become you.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
All client-side development churns. Because it's hard, it runs on user devices in the field. And client development is not a solved problem. It's more a moving target of constant research because client devices aren't static either. It wasn't long ago that touch screens didn't even exist. The whole Apple client-dev ecosystem is still in the process of changing to Swift, and Apple is trying to develop SwiftUI into a compelling layer alongside/atop {App,UI}Kit. It's not just a web/JS challenge. Client dev is always changing.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I don’t think so. Frontend is knee deep in the process of creating cargo cult devs en masse, and I’m depressed by all of this.

But do we get it? If we get it, why is frontend churn so prevalent? I don’t think we get it.

duxup 6y ago

Get what?

runawaybottle 6y ago
Resume driven development bad.

christophilus 6y ago

Is front end churn really so prevalent? I hear this opinion all the time, but React is 7 years old. I've been using it for around 5 years, I think. Redux is 5 years old. How old does the most popular web framework need to be before we consider it to be low churn? [Edit: Also, anecdote: before JS, I was mostly a C# developer, and the churn there was at least as bad, maybe worse in my personal experience. Over 15 years of my career, I had to learn ASP, then ASP.NET, and in the Windows app world, we went from WinForms to XAML, then .NET Core came out, and things shifted again... See Rails' history for more examples of churn. It's not like every other platform is a paragon of stability. Clojure is a bulwark of stability compared to just about anything else, but it's hardly fair to hold the front-end community up against that gold standard...]

quxbar 6y ago
JS has always been relevant as an ecosystem because it incorporates new ideas. I liked jQuery more than what came before it, and I like React more than jQuery. They make the task of translating an idea into a work app much easier for me, and other programmers I work with also benefit from more readable code. I wouldn't re-write an existing app to use fetch or hooks, but now that I've taken the time to learn, I'm happy I did. The vast majority of the mental work was done by other people, and I get to reap the benefits. The alternative to this is stagnation, and relegation to legacy systems... I guess the author wishes they could work in COBOL?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
runawaybottle 6y ago
I’m not sure if you realize your own paradox. Is churn really so prevalent? You then point out how prevalent it is in the .NET community. Yeah it’s prevalent, and if we resemble other shitty ecosystems then we need to introspect.
- christophilus 6y ago
  I do realize it. Maybe I should have added: churn as compared to what? JS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Most language ecosystems experience churn. I explicitly mentioned we shouldn’t hold everyone to the gold standard of stability that is Clojure. But... maybe we should? I’m not entirely sure that churn is a binary good or bad. When you think, “Hm I have a more elegant solution to this common problem.” And then offer it to the world, you’ll be shot down with “churn” comments. Churn is way we experience experimentation and the slow progress towards a better solution. I, for one, am glad I no longer have to program COBOL. Anyway, there’s probably a happy medium. Even Clojure has had some front-end churn. Om is no longer the hotness. Reframe seems to have won. Clojure itself isn’t that old.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    I’m waiting for the day I can enter a dot net C# codebase the same way you can enter frontend. None of you make your own landscape easy to enter, and I’m certainly not open to you guys dictating anything in this realm. We have frontend churn, we are working on it. You didn’t work on dot net churn while it was occurring, and you show up with the same attitude before the apex on front end. You couldn’t stop it once, and you’re here to enable the next? If you know how to stop it, talk. Otherwise stay out of it. We’re trying not to become you.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

All client-side development churns. Because it's hard, it runs on user devices in the field. And client development is not a solved problem. It's more a moving target of constant research because client devices aren't static either. It wasn't long ago that touch screens didn't even exist. The whole Apple client-dev ecosystem is still in the process of changing to Swift, and Apple is trying to develop SwiftUI into a compelling layer alongside/atop {App,UI}Kit. It's not just a web/JS challenge. Client dev is always changing.

runawaybottle 6y ago
I don’t think so. Frontend is knee deep in the process of creating cargo cult devs en masse, and I’m depressed by all of this.