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Obsession with the latest frameworks and the proclivity to refer to someone as an "X developer" for some X ∈ {popular frameworks} is a sign of ignorance/immatur

Obsession with the latest frameworks and the proclivity to refer to someone as an "X developer" for some X ∈ {popular frameworks} is a sign of ignorance/immaturity, both for developers and hiring managers. Those with a solid understanding of the underlying principles (both computer science theory and, in the case of front-end development, the core web standards) are the best positioned to make the most impactful contributions. Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly. Otherwise what you learn will be irrelevant five years from now.

crazy_horse 5y ago
It's also a big part of the hype cycle that is an actual industry with Patreon etc now. The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN.
- denvaar 5y ago
  > The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN. Can you explain what you mean by that?
  - crazy_horse 5y ago
    How often do you see Rust mentioned here? Rust's actual use in the industry is minimal. Yes, it's growing, but it's relatively unknown. The small academic team I was on wrote a stats app package using Mithril. Nobody's using mithril, it's hardly discussed here, even though the author posts often. I truly believe that mithril is better than React or Vue people just don't know about it, it's not part of the hype cycle. React is FB and was one of the first and Vue is designed in a very community-centric way. Had we done that project today, we'd probably pick one of those because they are a lot better on resumes. HN is full of people that post dozens of comments a day. You have to ask yourself what the people who don't need to talk about it all the time are using.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. I may not know how to write it, but I sure know what it is. It's not just limited to HN in awareness.
      - crazy_horse 5y ago
        You say that but my exposure to Rust was through HN. That same team I'd sit down and chat with the CS PhD majors that were doing machine learning. It genuinely surprised me when a brilliant student said he'd never heard of Rust. TIOBE is a garbage metric, but Rust's numbers are paltry there. It's key to some really important projects, but it still isn't a widely-used language.
        morty_s 5y ago
        Was reading through some C++ at work the other day and was like “why is this reference.. assigned to… copy constructor?… oh, yeah…” IMO it’s better (explicit) to see a call to `.clone()`, but maybe this is because I’m not up to my elbows in C++ everyday. Either way, I think Rust will continue to grow in popularity (C as well).
      - kongin 5y ago
        >Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. And it's used exactly nowhere. Can you name one project that is rust based and isn't part of the rust toolchain?
        haOk 5y ago
        It isn’t “Rust based” but a path to writing Linux kernel code in Rust is being worked out: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-rust/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-ru... Save you some reading; a path to writing drivers and possibly replacing code that is hard to make work safely in C is where the conversation is right now.
        lhorie 5y ago
  - foobar33333 5y ago
    HN would have you believe the whole frontend scene is totally replaced every month. At our company we started using React about 3 years ago and React is still the industry standard today and likely will be 3 years in the future.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  https://veekaybee.github.io/2019/05/10/java8/ https://veekaybee.github.io/2019/05/10/java8/ This sums it up quite nicely.
  - oars 5y ago
    Thank you for sharing this. This reflects the large part of my experience working in the Government and banking IT sectors. I don't see my previous employer (a Federal government) running workloads on K8s anytime soon. However, I do hope they've finished their migration from Windows Server 2008 by now though (we started this project in 2018, but I left halfway through).
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      If you are interested in government work, why not go in the private sector and come back through the US Digital Service? [0] Alternatively, why not engage with them? [0] https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/
hutzlibu 5y ago
"Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly. Otherwise what you learn will be irrelevant five years from now." After you followed the x. technology trend, you should have worked out the basic concepts behind them at some point, if you not just copy pasted and edited until something somewhat worked. They are seldom really fundamentally different. So every (necessary) technology change in the future becomes more easy. (but you might feel less motivated for unnecessary, but mandated change, that just reinvented the wheel in yet another color)
omegalulw 5y ago
> Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly. AKA Fundamentals :)
- katzgrau 5y ago
  AKA, be a backend developer, because tech changes less frequently there and backend devs get more respect than front end and "full stack" devs, regardless of how talented they are. Sorry I said it, but it's true.
  - dclusin 5y ago
    When non-programmers think of developers they always imagine front end devs. Rarely do they understand the distinction or specialization of programming roles.
  - schwartzworld 5y ago
    > backend devs get more respect than front end This has not been my experience. FE are expected to know a lot, and most backend devs I've known respect that.
    - katzgrau 5y ago
      Backend devs definitely know that, but it's management or outsiders who seem to think otherwise. I've performed both roles in my career but have always been impressed by talented frontend devs ability to make some otherwise batshit ui spec come to life ... but regardless, I was always paid more when I worked on the backend, and so was every other backend dev I knew. Maybe I'm the outlier.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Frontend devs who can also design (especially make impressive mock-ups) and talk OK are gods in meetings, which translates into better social standing (which can equal money, if they play their cards right and move into "product owner" and such, over time)
lambdaba 5y ago
This reminded me of Rich Hickey's "on becoming a better developer": https://gist.github.com/prakhar1989/1b0a2c9849b2e1e912fb https://gist.github.com/prakhar1989/1b0a2c9849b2e1e912fb
57844743385 5y ago
None of this is true. The latest frameworks aren’t just “trends”, like fashion. They’re improved ways of doing things. Better, simpler, more reliable. Advocating to use tech that changes slowly, or avoid latest frameworks is advocating being slower and less productive.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  There’s a cost to learning a new framework that may outweigh the incremental benefits, especially if you have to do it every few years.
- morty_s 5y ago
  Eh, idk. We could have lisp, x-expressions, macros, and DSLs instead of most frameworks. We could even use lisp dialects to “write C” (eg Chicken Scheme). I do think a lot of frameworks are fashion statements, but that’s okay because style matters when doing creative work.
  - 57844743385 5y ago
    The people who say latest javascript frameworks are just fashions are not javascript developers. They’re developers from other ecosystems who just want to look down in javascript and feel superior.
- Cacti 5y ago
  Frameworks are a spinning wheel that reinvent technology every 3-5 years. It only seems like an improvement because the people using and writing it are relearning the same lessons that their predecessors already learned, but are unaware of this. There’s only so many ways to write a reasonable GUI framework. There’s only so many ways to do general purpose data stores. There’s only so many ways to handle events. There’s only so many ways to schedule load/threads/work. There’s only so many ways to build code. There’s only so many ways to do object/class/etc. inheritance. There’s only so many ways to do interfaces/contracts/whatever. etc. It’s the same patterns and trade offs over and over again, but if you’ve never much of anything outside of web dev you’d never know that. The past 15 years of web dev is the story of young programmers racing forward, having never bothered to look at the past.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
oceanghost 5y ago
I agree with you in theory, but in practice, I find it really hard to get a job saying, "I'm acquainted with CS fundamentals." I once got bounced from a job interview for not knowing about a quirk of the newest XCode (less than a week old).
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  Maybe that was for the better? Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
- codetrotter 5y ago
  > I once got bounced from a job interview for not knowing about a quirk of the newest XCode (less than a week old) Sounds like they did you a favor. Who’d want to work for people like that?
  - robocat 5y ago
    > Who’d want to work for people like that Recruiters, HR and interviewers often are nothing like the culture of the people you will end up working with. Treat everything as a potential signal, but take care not to mistake noise for signal. Also recruitment is often about reducing false positives (avoiding bad hires), at the cost of a high number of false negatives (failing to employ suitable candidates). Try not to take it personally when they give you a no for an obviously bad reason?!
    - MrDresden 5y ago
      This isn't universal, but the best places have peers do some or most of the interviewing. So only interacting with HR/management would be a red flag for me.
  - oceanghost 5y ago
    I did. The company I worked for was infinitely worse (literal Sociopathic management). The pay was better, it was closer to home, and the work was more stable. If I had to guess-- I'd say the existing iOS guy wanted a friend to be hired so he tanked me.

crazy_horse 5y ago

It's also a big part of the hype cycle that is an actual industry with Patreon etc now. The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN.

denvaar 5y ago
> The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN. Can you explain what you mean by that?
- crazy_horse 5y ago
  How often do you see Rust mentioned here? Rust's actual use in the industry is minimal. Yes, it's growing, but it's relatively unknown. The small academic team I was on wrote a stats app package using Mithril. Nobody's using mithril, it's hardly discussed here, even though the author posts often. I truly believe that mithril is better than React or Vue people just don't know about it, it's not part of the hype cycle. React is FB and was one of the first and Vue is designed in a very community-centric way. Had we done that project today, we'd probably pick one of those because they are a lot better on resumes. HN is full of people that post dozens of comments a day. You have to ask yourself what the people who don't need to talk about it all the time are using.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. I may not know how to write it, but I sure know what it is. It's not just limited to HN in awareness.
    - crazy_horse 5y ago
      You say that but my exposure to Rust was through HN. That same team I'd sit down and chat with the CS PhD majors that were doing machine learning. It genuinely surprised me when a brilliant student said he'd never heard of Rust. TIOBE is a garbage metric, but Rust's numbers are paltry there. It's key to some really important projects, but it still isn't a widely-used language.
      - morty_s 5y ago
        Was reading through some C++ at work the other day and was like “why is this reference.. assigned to… copy constructor?… oh, yeah…” IMO it’s better (explicit) to see a call to `.clone()`, but maybe this is because I’m not up to my elbows in C++ everyday. Either way, I think Rust will continue to grow in popularity (C as well).
    - kongin 5y ago
      >Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. And it's used exactly nowhere. Can you name one project that is rust based and isn't part of the rust toolchain?
      - haOk 5y ago
        It isn’t “Rust based” but a path to writing Linux kernel code in Rust is being worked out: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-rust/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-ru... Save you some reading; a path to writing drivers and possibly replacing code that is hard to make work safely in C is where the conversation is right now.
      - lhorie 5y ago
- foobar33333 5y ago
  HN would have you believe the whole frontend scene is totally replaced every month. At our company we started using React about 3 years ago and React is still the industry standard today and likely will be 3 years in the future.
908B64B197 5y ago
https://veekaybee.github.io/2019/05/10/java8/ https://veekaybee.github.io/2019/05/10/java8/ This sums it up quite nicely.
- oars 5y ago
  Thank you for sharing this. This reflects the large part of my experience working in the Government and banking IT sectors. I don't see my previous employer (a Federal government) running workloads on K8s anytime soon. However, I do hope they've finished their migration from Windows Server 2008 by now though (we started this project in 2018, but I left halfway through).
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    If you are interested in government work, why not go in the private sector and come back through the US Digital Service? [0] Alternatively, why not engage with them? [0] https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/

hutzlibu 5y ago

"Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly. Otherwise what you learn will be irrelevant five years from now." After you followed the x. technology trend, you should have worked out the basic concepts behind them at some point, if you not just copy pasted and edited until something somewhat worked. They are seldom really fundamentally different. So every (necessary) technology change in the future becomes more easy. (but you might feel less motivated for unnecessary, but mandated change, that just reinvented the wheel in yet another color)

omegalulw 5y ago

> Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly. AKA Fundamentals :)

katzgrau 5y ago
AKA, be a backend developer, because tech changes less frequently there and backend devs get more respect than front end and "full stack" devs, regardless of how talented they are. Sorry I said it, but it's true.
- dclusin 5y ago
  When non-programmers think of developers they always imagine front end devs. Rarely do they understand the distinction or specialization of programming roles.
- schwartzworld 5y ago
  > backend devs get more respect than front end This has not been my experience. FE are expected to know a lot, and most backend devs I've known respect that.
  - katzgrau 5y ago
    Backend devs definitely know that, but it's management or outsiders who seem to think otherwise. I've performed both roles in my career but have always been impressed by talented frontend devs ability to make some otherwise batshit ui spec come to life ... but regardless, I was always paid more when I worked on the backend, and so was every other backend dev I knew. Maybe I'm the outlier.
- handrous 5y ago
  Frontend devs who can also design (especially make impressive mock-ups) and talk OK are gods in meetings, which translates into better social standing (which can equal money, if they play their cards right and move into "product owner" and such, over time)

lambdaba 5y ago

This reminded me of Rich Hickey's "on becoming a better developer": https://gist.github.com/prakhar1989/1b0a2c9849b2e1e912fb https://gist.github.com/prakhar1989/1b0a2c9849b2e1e912fb

57844743385 5y ago

None of this is true. The latest frameworks aren’t just “trends”, like fashion. They’re improved ways of doing things. Better, simpler, more reliable. Advocating to use tech that changes slowly, or avoid latest frameworks is advocating being slower and less productive.

ceejayoz 5y ago
There’s a cost to learning a new framework that may outweigh the incremental benefits, especially if you have to do it every few years.
morty_s 5y ago
Eh, idk. We could have lisp, x-expressions, macros, and DSLs instead of most frameworks. We could even use lisp dialects to “write C” (eg Chicken Scheme). I do think a lot of frameworks are fashion statements, but that’s okay because style matters when doing creative work.
- 57844743385 5y ago
  The people who say latest javascript frameworks are just fashions are not javascript developers. They’re developers from other ecosystems who just want to look down in javascript and feel superior.
Cacti 5y ago
Frameworks are a spinning wheel that reinvent technology every 3-5 years. It only seems like an improvement because the people using and writing it are relearning the same lessons that their predecessors already learned, but are unaware of this. There’s only so many ways to write a reasonable GUI framework. There’s only so many ways to do general purpose data stores. There’s only so many ways to handle events. There’s only so many ways to schedule load/threads/work. There’s only so many ways to build code. There’s only so many ways to do object/class/etc. inheritance. There’s only so many ways to do interfaces/contracts/whatever. etc. It’s the same patterns and trade offs over and over again, but if you’ve never much of anything outside of web dev you’d never know that. The past 15 years of web dev is the story of young programmers racing forward, having never bothered to look at the past.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

oceanghost 5y ago

I agree with you in theory, but in practice, I find it really hard to get a job saying, "I'm acquainted with CS fundamentals." I once got bounced from a job interview for not knowing about a quirk of the newest XCode (less than a week old).

monkeybutton 5y ago
Maybe that was for the better? Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
codetrotter 5y ago
> I once got bounced from a job interview for not knowing about a quirk of the newest XCode (less than a week old) Sounds like they did you a favor. Who’d want to work for people like that?
- robocat 5y ago
  > Who’d want to work for people like that Recruiters, HR and interviewers often are nothing like the culture of the people you will end up working with. Treat everything as a potential signal, but take care not to mistake noise for signal. Also recruitment is often about reducing false positives (avoiding bad hires), at the cost of a high number of false negatives (failing to employ suitable candidates). Try not to take it personally when they give you a no for an obviously bad reason?!
  - MrDresden 5y ago
    This isn't universal, but the best places have peers do some or most of the interviewing. So only interacting with HR/management would be a red flag for me.
- oceanghost 5y ago
  I did. The company I worked for was infinitely worse (literal Sociopathic management). The pay was better, it was closer to home, and the work was more stable. If I had to guess-- I'd say the existing iOS guy wanted a friend to be hired so he tanked me.