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I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly needed to find a new job I’d have to learn some sort of front end JavaScript framewo

by donatj 4y ago

I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly needed to find a new job I’d have to learn some sort of front end JavaScript framework.

pjerem 4y ago
Could be worse. I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly find a technically fulfilling job, realizing I forgot everything about computers after a decade on working on meaningless front end JavaScript framework.
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  Even worse when backend is javascript framework too. Welcome to isomorphic thingy (don't even know what that really means). SSR today only means nodejs server. No, not ruby, go, rust, python, php, elixir, it's javascript. Island architecture, partial hydration, and the latest backend js framework is "Zero JavaScript Runtime" wow. One language to rule them all pipe dream is not dead yet.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Yeah, that’s a thing. When you’ve been fighting React for some years your mental pathways for anything else are completely eroded.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Where is the job where you get to work on compilers. If it is not React it is probably the glorious back end, making some graphql endpoints talk to mongodb or suchlike. Or devops, fight k8s!
  - bluGill 4y ago
    There are a few thousand compiler jobs in the world. Maybe in the tens of thousands, i'm not sure. For everyone of them there are thousands (again I don't know how to measure, could be in the ten thousands) of programmers using the compiler.
    - golergka 4y ago
      Feels pretty lined up to the amount of programmers who are skilled in writing compilers.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        If I got a job in writing compilers I could becomes skilled at it. However I have a job in a different area. I doubt few as as skilled at writing the type of code I write as me, but the world only needs a few handfuls of people who write the type in the niche I'm writing code in. The world needs lots of websites, and so the world needs lots of people skilled in writing them.
        quickthrower2 4y ago
        This is what I call the graduate job paradox. What you do as your first job massively influences you career. I did .NET for years by the fluke that is what my first job did. If they did Java, I would be an expert in Java. If I worked somewhere they needed a compiler written in C++ I would have done it and may have a compiler career. The paradox is as a graduate you generally, unless very exceptional or well connected, or live in the (not "a") tech city, just need to get that first job. It is hard to get that breaking opportunity, and so that thing that will have echoes throughout your career, you don't have much control over! The reason it is hard to get the first job is because it needs interview experience, and you have very little proof yet. You are asking a company to take that leap of faith. Later side stepping is possible but very hard as you are competing with people who can be paid the same as a web dev with deep experience. Also as a young person back then, I had approximately zero confidence, both in myself and even that programming is a good thing to do. Getting into it was very weird, I was probably the only person at my high school of hundreds who geeked out on electronics and programming, for example. Nowadays with HN and other sites, there is an online community such that even in a country town you can get a sense of community and what is possible. With that any graduate now could hatch a decent plan for their career. They might take any job to pay the bills, but aim to get into a FAANG for example, knowing what it pays and how to go about it. 2020's are amazing.
nvarsj 4y ago
Honestly that's why I swapped from front-end at the beginning of my career. Back end and infra moves much slower, jobs tend to be more secure and specialized, and pay seems higher overall. Learning Java back in the 00s was one of my best career moves.
- cutler 4y ago
  Do you see much evidence of Kotlin eating Java's lunch as some have predicted?
- jongjong 4y ago
  I agree. Also, back end tends to have fewer mega-trends. You usually have the option to stick to your old tools. There are still plenty of C/C++ back end jobs for example. The community keeps branching off. On the front end, the trends tend to be more extreme; people will not take you seriously unless you give up on whatever tools you use and go straight for React or VueJS... Then when TypeScript comes along, everyone has to switch to that... I couldn't believe it when people started combining JSX with TypeScript... It's essentially a double-transpiled language now... The trends keep adding more complexity and everyone is forced to switch to that regardless.
  - danielvaughn 4y ago
    As someone who really appreciates strong typing, I will die on this hill - I hate Typescript. Introducing a transpiled typing system on top of a dynamically typed language is a recipe for all sorts of insane complexity, which is what I experience whenever I try to use TS. If you consider all the time and effort it took to introduce types for every NPM project out there, all the development of the language itself, the effort expended by individual devs and teams to learn the syntax... ...might it have been the same amount of effort just to introduce some strong types into Javascript itself? It's not like the language can't adapt, and there are already some strong types when you're working with the graphics APIs.
    - Existenceblinks 4y ago

by donatj 4y ago

I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly needed to find a new job I’d have to learn some sort of front end JavaScript framework.

pjerem 4y ago

Could be worse. I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly find a technically fulfilling job, realizing I forgot everything about computers after a decade on working on meaningless front end JavaScript framework.

Existenceblinks 4y ago
Even worse when backend is javascript framework too. Welcome to isomorphic thingy (don't even know what that really means). SSR today only means nodejs server. No, not ruby, go, rust, python, php, elixir, it's javascript. Island architecture, partial hydration, and the latest backend js framework is "Zero JavaScript Runtime" wow. One language to rule them all pipe dream is not dead yet.
Aeolun 4y ago
Yeah, that’s a thing. When you’ve been fighting React for some years your mental pathways for anything else are completely eroded.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Where is the job where you get to work on compilers. If it is not React it is probably the glorious back end, making some graphql endpoints talk to mongodb or suchlike. Or devops, fight k8s!
- bluGill 4y ago
  There are a few thousand compiler jobs in the world. Maybe in the tens of thousands, i'm not sure. For everyone of them there are thousands (again I don't know how to measure, could be in the ten thousands) of programmers using the compiler.
  - golergka 4y ago
    Feels pretty lined up to the amount of programmers who are skilled in writing compilers.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      If I got a job in writing compilers I could becomes skilled at it. However I have a job in a different area. I doubt few as as skilled at writing the type of code I write as me, but the world only needs a few handfuls of people who write the type in the niche I'm writing code in. The world needs lots of websites, and so the world needs lots of people skilled in writing them.
      - quickthrower2 4y ago
        This is what I call the graduate job paradox. What you do as your first job massively influences you career. I did .NET for years by the fluke that is what my first job did. If they did Java, I would be an expert in Java. If I worked somewhere they needed a compiler written in C++ I would have done it and may have a compiler career. The paradox is as a graduate you generally, unless very exceptional or well connected, or live in the (not "a") tech city, just need to get that first job. It is hard to get that breaking opportunity, and so that thing that will have echoes throughout your career, you don't have much control over! The reason it is hard to get the first job is because it needs interview experience, and you have very little proof yet. You are asking a company to take that leap of faith. Later side stepping is possible but very hard as you are competing with people who can be paid the same as a web dev with deep experience. Also as a young person back then, I had approximately zero confidence, both in myself and even that programming is a good thing to do. Getting into it was very weird, I was probably the only person at my high school of hundreds who geeked out on electronics and programming, for example. Nowadays with HN and other sites, there is an online community such that even in a country town you can get a sense of community and what is possible. With that any graduate now could hatch a decent plan for their career. They might take any job to pay the bills, but aim to get into a FAANG for example, knowing what it pays and how to go about it. 2020's are amazing.

nvarsj 4y ago

Honestly that's why I swapped from front-end at the beginning of my career. Back end and infra moves much slower, jobs tend to be more secure and specialized, and pay seems higher overall. Learning Java back in the 00s was one of my best career moves.

cutler 4y ago
Do you see much evidence of Kotlin eating Java's lunch as some have predicted?
jongjong 4y ago
I agree. Also, back end tends to have fewer mega-trends. You usually have the option to stick to your old tools. There are still plenty of C/C++ back end jobs for example. The community keeps branching off. On the front end, the trends tend to be more extreme; people will not take you seriously unless you give up on whatever tools you use and go straight for React or VueJS... Then when TypeScript comes along, everyone has to switch to that... I couldn't believe it when people started combining JSX with TypeScript... It's essentially a double-transpiled language now... The trends keep adding more complexity and everyone is forced to switch to that regardless.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  As someone who really appreciates strong typing, I will die on this hill - I hate Typescript. Introducing a transpiled typing system on top of a dynamically typed language is a recipe for all sorts of insane complexity, which is what I experience whenever I try to use TS. If you consider all the time and effort it took to introduce types for every NPM project out there, all the development of the language itself, the effort expended by individual devs and teams to learn the syntax... ...might it have been the same amount of effort just to introduce some strong types into Javascript itself? It's not like the language can't adapt, and there are already some strong types when you're working with the graphics APIs.
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago