4 ms·

That's the beauty of it, if the concrete performance improvements don't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff you don't have to use it. The idea that everyone should

That's the beauty of it, if the concrete performance improvements don't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff you don't have to use it. The idea that everyone should just contribute to one package instead of creating their own solutions is just silly, we are not able to dictate what people code up in their own time. Besides, there are dozens and sometimes hundreds of active contributors to every popular open source package, just adding more developers doesn't necessarily make things better, not to mention that the necessary quality control and code review demands for mature projects means many contributions are often misguided or not useful.

vaughan 5y ago
A counter point would be to look at the Python ecosystem. They have many fewer libraries but the ones they have are very well maintained and widely adopted. JS/Node is full of unmaintained projects that people inevitably need to migrate away from. Of all the new choices in bundlers today, it’s also inevitable that some won’t work out, yet they will drive hype and adoption, which could have been spent on already established tools such as webpack. Yes, innovation is good and no one should tell someone what to do in their free time. But it’s always going to be harder to build on top of old rather than to write something new, but what is new eventually becomes old...and the cycle repeats.
- root_axis 5y ago
  > A counter point would be to look at the Python ecosystem. They have many fewer libraries but the ones they have are very well maintained and widely adopted. So what? It is what it is - the python ecosystem faces completely different challenges than the JS ecosystem, if the browsers exclusively ran Python instead of JS it would be the exact same situation for Python. > JS/Node is full of unmaintained projects that people inevitably need to migrate away from This isn't true. jQuery, Angular.js, Angular, React, Vue etc are all still maintained (check their githubs if you are in doubt) and all still work just fine, so if you want to use the same tooling you did a decade ago that's totally possible. > it’s always going to be harder to build on top of old rather than to write something new So what? If you want to contribute to old projects instead of writing something new you're free to do that, and if you don't like new stuff you don't have to use it, complaining about this stuff is just pointless contrarianism, but of course, you're free to do that too.
  - Daishiman 5y ago
    It isn't contrariarism. The end result is that most JS libraries are immature, have complex edge cases that can only be fulfilled by one package but not from another similar package, and that old packages don't evolve to adapt to new paradigms. Knowing that pretty much every Python dev knows how to use requests, Django, and NumPy means saving a huge amount of effort in retraining and fighting to pick and choose on choices of ultimately little value.
    - root_axis 5y ago
      It is contrarianism, there are many mature JS libraries, the fact that less mature packages also exist isn't a problem, just don't use them. > Knowing that pretty much every Python dev knows how to use requests, Django, and NumPy This isn't true, but even if I grant this to be true, you could just as accurately say pretty much every js dev knows node, axios and react.
      - Daishiman 5y ago
        AFAIK Axios isn't even universally used for requests, and in the SPA framework space it seems to be a split between Angular and React in popularity. None of these things seem to be occurring in the Python space.
        root_axis 5y ago
        Nothing is universal, you're seeing what you want to see. I could say the same thing about django, flask, and web2py or numpy and panda, or trio and asyncio.
        Daishiman 5y ago
        Django doesn't occupy the same space as flask; not in the same way React and Vue seem to. Web2py is nonexistent. Numpy is a basic linear algebra library and Pandas is a high-level tabular data analysis library. None of these things compete with each other in any meaningful way.

vaughan 5y ago

A counter point would be to look at the Python ecosystem. They have many fewer libraries but the ones they have are very well maintained and widely adopted. JS/Node is full of unmaintained projects that people inevitably need to migrate away from. Of all the new choices in bundlers today, it’s also inevitable that some won’t work out, yet they will drive hype and adoption, which could have been spent on already established tools such as webpack. Yes, innovation is good and no one should tell someone what to do in their free time. But it’s always going to be harder to build on top of old rather than to write something new, but what is new eventually becomes old...and the cycle repeats.

root_axis 5y ago
> A counter point would be to look at the Python ecosystem. They have many fewer libraries but the ones they have are very well maintained and widely adopted. So what? It is what it is - the python ecosystem faces completely different challenges than the JS ecosystem, if the browsers exclusively ran Python instead of JS it would be the exact same situation for Python. > JS/Node is full of unmaintained projects that people inevitably need to migrate away from This isn't true. jQuery, Angular.js, Angular, React, Vue etc are all still maintained (check their githubs if you are in doubt) and all still work just fine, so if you want to use the same tooling you did a decade ago that's totally possible. > it’s always going to be harder to build on top of old rather than to write something new So what? If you want to contribute to old projects instead of writing something new you're free to do that, and if you don't like new stuff you don't have to use it, complaining about this stuff is just pointless contrarianism, but of course, you're free to do that too.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  It isn't contrariarism. The end result is that most JS libraries are immature, have complex edge cases that can only be fulfilled by one package but not from another similar package, and that old packages don't evolve to adapt to new paradigms. Knowing that pretty much every Python dev knows how to use requests, Django, and NumPy means saving a huge amount of effort in retraining and fighting to pick and choose on choices of ultimately little value.
  - root_axis 5y ago
    It is contrarianism, there are many mature JS libraries, the fact that less mature packages also exist isn't a problem, just don't use them. > Knowing that pretty much every Python dev knows how to use requests, Django, and NumPy This isn't true, but even if I grant this to be true, you could just as accurately say pretty much every js dev knows node, axios and react.
    - Daishiman 5y ago
      AFAIK Axios isn't even universally used for requests, and in the SPA framework space it seems to be a split between Angular and React in popularity. None of these things seem to be occurring in the Python space.
      - root_axis 5y ago
        Nothing is universal, you're seeing what you want to see. I could say the same thing about django, flask, and web2py or numpy and panda, or trio and asyncio.
        Daishiman 5y ago
        Django doesn't occupy the same space as flask; not in the same way React and Vue seem to. Web2py is nonexistent. Numpy is a basic linear algebra library and Pandas is a high-level tabular data analysis library. None of these things compete with each other in any meaningful way.