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I agree people should take ownership over their decisions, but it's more nuanced than "don't cry": if someone makes a mistake/bad decision, shouldn't they warn

I agree people should take ownership over their decisions, but it's more nuanced than "don't cry": if someone makes a mistake/bad decision, shouldn't they warn others so they don't do the same? And frankly, let's stop pretending the JS ecosystem is not problematic. Can anyone in good faith argue for a JS project which offers the stability, refinement, and elegance of projects available for Ruby (Rails), Python (Django), Elixir (Phoenix), etc? Even micro-frameworks like Flask, which don't include tons of batteries, are still much more dev-friendly than Node/Express/React/etc.

nawgz 6y ago
>frankly, let's stop pretending the JS ecosystem is not problematic. Can anyone in good faith argue for a Node project React is a node project, so I can do so trivially. React is a top tier library when it comes to key features like stability, documentation, backwards compatibility, and extensibility / usability. I can also say TypeScript is one of the most amazing projects of all time. Last but not least - express is super easy to use. I don't know what "dev-friendly" means, as a criteria though. Keep in mind, though, since it's JS, it's really easy to wrap and extend. To me, you have to justify how Flask is superior to Express; I think you just like Python more.
- ralmidani 6y ago
  React is stable? React.createElement -> Sub-classing the Component class -> "just use hooks everywhere" in the span of a few years? Sure, Django went from function-based to class-based views, but the change was far less abrupt, and you can still use functional views if you want to. As for TypeScript, I agree it's amazing, but it's neither a framework nor a library for building web applications. It's more of a superset/transpiler. It makes working with Node/React/Express better, but it doesn't replace them. With regard to Express, it's decent, but e.g. do we really need to torture newcomers by expecting them to know they'll need to also include/install and require body-parser? I mean, why would I be using a web framework, even a micro-one, if I'm expected to bring in a separate tool just for parsing requests? Regarding the suggestion that I like Python more, I would gladly choose TypeScript over Python (the typing tools there are still immature) if there was less churn in the JS ecosystem. Deno is promising. :)
  - nawgz 6y ago
    >React is stable? Yes. Despite what you're trying to imply about them "updating" too often, my code from 2016 still works correctly against the newest versions of React. That's pretty much the definition of stability to me. > the change was far less abrupt, and you can still use functional views if you want to So you are hating on React because you don't know this, but this exact optional progression has always been how they have introduced new features into React. Again - old code works with new React versions. > do we really need to ... expect them to know True, this is a weakness, but the documentation is pretty explicit on this front. It's not like there isn't a big community around the library to address this. Anyhow, I respect your points here, and concede that writing server-side code in Node is probably not what you want to do; I reach for tools like Hasura in this case regardless. With low-code backend tooling and React, I can promise you I can make a better website than with just Python no matter how much Django template wizardry one can muster.
    - ralmidani 6y ago
      Stability is not just about backward-compatibility; it also means promoting concepts/idioms which are consistent and long-lived. Django has been around for about 3 times as long as React, but has not undergone the same amount of churn that React has. If someone wrote React code in 2016 and left the scene for a couple of years, can they come back and build new React projects without significant re-training? Regarding Django templates, I know how they work, but actually prefer building an API with Django, and connecting to that with an SPA (preferably one built with Ember since, as you can probably tell, I prefer batteries-included frameworks). I'm really not as anti-JS as you inferred from my initial post (or as I unintentionally implied), but saying the ecosystem is not problematic makes it harder for it to get better.
      - d0100 6y ago
        > can they come back and build new React projects without significant re-training? The answer is yes
        6y ago

nawgz 6y ago

>frankly, let's stop pretending the JS ecosystem is not problematic. Can anyone in good faith argue for a Node project React is a node project, so I can do so trivially. React is a top tier library when it comes to key features like stability, documentation, backwards compatibility, and extensibility / usability. I can also say TypeScript is one of the most amazing projects of all time. Last but not least - express is super easy to use. I don't know what "dev-friendly" means, as a criteria though. Keep in mind, though, since it's JS, it's really easy to wrap and extend. To me, you have to justify how Flask is superior to Express; I think you just like Python more.

ralmidani 6y ago
React is stable? React.createElement -> Sub-classing the Component class -> "just use hooks everywhere" in the span of a few years? Sure, Django went from function-based to class-based views, but the change was far less abrupt, and you can still use functional views if you want to. As for TypeScript, I agree it's amazing, but it's neither a framework nor a library for building web applications. It's more of a superset/transpiler. It makes working with Node/React/Express better, but it doesn't replace them. With regard to Express, it's decent, but e.g. do we really need to torture newcomers by expecting them to know they'll need to also include/install and require body-parser? I mean, why would I be using a web framework, even a micro-one, if I'm expected to bring in a separate tool just for parsing requests? Regarding the suggestion that I like Python more, I would gladly choose TypeScript over Python (the typing tools there are still immature) if there was less churn in the JS ecosystem. Deno is promising. :)
- nawgz 6y ago
  >React is stable? Yes. Despite what you're trying to imply about them "updating" too often, my code from 2016 still works correctly against the newest versions of React. That's pretty much the definition of stability to me. > the change was far less abrupt, and you can still use functional views if you want to So you are hating on React because you don't know this, but this exact optional progression has always been how they have introduced new features into React. Again - old code works with new React versions. > do we really need to ... expect them to know True, this is a weakness, but the documentation is pretty explicit on this front. It's not like there isn't a big community around the library to address this. Anyhow, I respect your points here, and concede that writing server-side code in Node is probably not what you want to do; I reach for tools like Hasura in this case regardless. With low-code backend tooling and React, I can promise you I can make a better website than with just Python no matter how much Django template wizardry one can muster.
  - ralmidani 6y ago
    Stability is not just about backward-compatibility; it also means promoting concepts/idioms which are consistent and long-lived. Django has been around for about 3 times as long as React, but has not undergone the same amount of churn that React has. If someone wrote React code in 2016 and left the scene for a couple of years, can they come back and build new React projects without significant re-training? Regarding Django templates, I know how they work, but actually prefer building an API with Django, and connecting to that with an SPA (preferably one built with Ember since, as you can probably tell, I prefer batteries-included frameworks). I'm really not as anti-JS as you inferred from my initial post (or as I unintentionally implied), but saying the ecosystem is not problematic makes it harder for it to get better.
    - d0100 6y ago
      > can they come back and build new React projects without significant re-training? The answer is yes
      - 6y ago