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>But as a general rule, I think we must not discard a technology just because it's old. Doing so because it's too new would make more sense, if you want to buil

by antris 4y ago

>But as a general rule, I think we must not discard a technology just because it's old. Doing so because it's too new would make more sense, if you want to build stuff for businesses. Agree with the first statement but, not necessarily on the second. People dismissed React for being "too new" or "the latest stupid shiny new framework" for a long time because they didn't understand it. But when I read about it for the first time, I understood the problem it was solving with the VDOM. It made perfect sense for me to start using it immediately because it quickly starts saving a lot of time formerly spent on writing DOM setting/resetting code and making sure it never breaks. It was something I was already thinking about: "how could I avoid writing all this tedious DOM manipulation code". And there it was, and I knew it would become big. It took a while for the rest of the world realize it, but eventually it caught on. Sometimes tools pop up that make perfect sense. So you shouldn't dismiss any technology for its age, whether it's old or new.

pjerem 4y ago
Yup. And that’s why author wrote "But as a general rule" instead of as an immuable rule.
m12k 4y ago
The problem with new tech isn't just that it might not make sense. It's also that if it doesn't gain enough traction to reach critical mass, it might not be a good technical foundation for your business. As a business owner the question isn't just "can I solve the problems I face today using this?" it's also "will I be able to hire developers that know this 10 years from now?" and "will there continue to be an ecosystem of useful middleware for this?" For React, the answer is yes to all of those, and has been for a couple years now, but 5 years ago, the latter questions weren't really decided yet.
- antris 4y ago
  If you only use React as a library for the VDOM, there's barely anything to learn, though. Even if nobody had heard of it previously, people would get up to speed in no time. That's how I started using it, keep my application as it is but just use React as the DOM diffing engine and delete tons of DOM manipulation code from the repo. The "React as a framework" thing came later, which I personally think is a misstep. I'm not into frameworks in general.

by antris 4y ago

pjerem 4y ago

Yup. And that’s why author wrote "But as a general rule" instead of as an immuable rule.

m12k 4y ago

The problem with new tech isn't just that it might not make sense. It's also that if it doesn't gain enough traction to reach critical mass, it might not be a good technical foundation for your business. As a business owner the question isn't just "can I solve the problems I face today using this?" it's also "will I be able to hire developers that know this 10 years from now?" and "will there continue to be an ecosystem of useful middleware for this?" For React, the answer is yes to all of those, and has been for a couple years now, but 5 years ago, the latter questions weren't really decided yet.

antris 4y ago
If you only use React as a library for the VDOM, there's barely anything to learn, though. Even if nobody had heard of it previously, people would get up to speed in no time. That's how I started using it, keep my application as it is but just use React as the DOM diffing engine and delete tons of DOM manipulation code from the repo. The "React as a framework" thing came later, which I personally think is a misstep. I'm not into frameworks in general.