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Here's my hot take. I think the author is partly justified in the premise. React when it came out was really a breath of fresh air and solved a class of problem

Here's my hot take. I think the author is partly justified in the premise. React when it came out was really a breath of fresh air and solved a class of problems really well. Sure it had its rough edges, but you expect those to smoothen out over time. But what has happened is exactly the opposite, where it has become more unwieldy and confounding to use. If I look back at the journey of springframework in java as an example, it had a graceful evolution, becoming more refined with each version, and springboot finally hitting the sweet spot. I think the root of the problem with react is actually the community. The web community has not figured out how to maintain software. There is an unhealthy attraction towards new paradigms and tools and an unhealthy willingness to endure paper cuts. So many practices simply wouldn't fly in any other community. Skepticism towards new ideas and a stubbornness to resist change are very important attributes for any community. It ensures that when a change does happen it passes through a very strict filter ensuring only the best of ideas get through. Tools that are built will only be as good as the community. I believe React had a great opportunity to become something cherished, but the community had to take it to that direction.

zero_shift 4y ago
This is a contradiction in terms: > There is an unhealthy attraction towards new paradigms and tools and an unhealthy willingness to endure paper cuts. Web developers (who are often maligned on this site) are both too eager to move to better tools... But also, not eager enough > So many practices simply wouldn't fly in any other community. Skepticism towards new ideas and a stubbornness to resist change are very important attributes for any community. Yeah, and hooks had a lot of pushback at the time. The new useEffect semantics are getting pushback. These are exactly what you are asking for. What are you wanting us webdevs to... _do_, exactly? It seems anyone can come to Reddit or the orange site and rail against UI programmers all day. But if we sit down and explain the situation nobody is very interested to listen.
- vosper 4y ago
  > It seems anyone can come to Reddit or the orange site and rail against UI programmers all day. But if we sit down and explain the situation nobody is very interested to listen. And when someone tries to make things better with a new take or tool they get shat on here with “hurr durr those JavaScript developers always jumping on the new framework of the week” HN, where sneering at web devs always gets upvotes and somehow never gets old
  - joshmanders 4y ago
- potamic 4y ago
  Webdevs are very much part of this community, I don't think anyone will say otherwise. I definitely am not trying to malign anyone, just sharing my observations. This is of course a very subjective matter and I don't deny I could be far off from reality, but it's a personal observation for now. The community here believes strongly in critique and I hope we appreciate critique for what it is. On the topic, the latest kid on the block is deno. New runtime is cool, but having to rewrite userland is ludicrous. Now you have deno dotenv package, (inspired by node dotenv), oak middleware inspired by koa, semver, base64, a modern web framework... where's the end to this? Reinvent the entire node ecosystem and fragment the community? Now I never blame the creators because they are attempting something, but if this takes off I will blame the community. People should be up with their arms shouting what a terrible idea this is, but that kind of critique is something that is missing from this community. One of the best things about the web community is their unconditional positivity, but that is also their failing. I fear people will jump on bandwagon and embrace deno with both arms, we will see a race to rewrite all the popular node packages in deno, companies will open positions for deno developers, new developers will be asking whether they should take the node course or the deno course, all until the next asteroid arrives.
auggierose 4y ago
> Skepticism towards new ideas and a stubbornness to resist change are very important attributes for any community. It ensures that when a change does happen it passes through a very strict filter ensuring only the best of ideas get through The problem is, how do you ensure that a "very strict filter" is also a good filter? The best stuff gets caught up in those filters, because the best stuff looks like nothing the filter has seen before. Or it might indeed look too much like something the filter has seen plenty of times before and (rightfully) dismissed as unimportant. And in the end it is not so much a community embracing the best idea, but the best idea taking a sledge hammer to the community. I like React, and I think it is improving quite nicely. But Svelte seems also an interesting thing to try out.

zero_shift 4y ago

This is a contradiction in terms: > There is an unhealthy attraction towards new paradigms and tools and an unhealthy willingness to endure paper cuts. Web developers (who are often maligned on this site) are both too eager to move to better tools... But also, not eager enough > So many practices simply wouldn't fly in any other community. Skepticism towards new ideas and a stubbornness to resist change are very important attributes for any community. Yeah, and hooks had a lot of pushback at the time. The new useEffect semantics are getting pushback. These are exactly what you are asking for. What are you wanting us webdevs to... _do_, exactly? It seems anyone can come to Reddit or the orange site and rail against UI programmers all day. But if we sit down and explain the situation nobody is very interested to listen.

vosper 4y ago
> It seems anyone can come to Reddit or the orange site and rail against UI programmers all day. But if we sit down and explain the situation nobody is very interested to listen. And when someone tries to make things better with a new take or tool they get shat on here with “hurr durr those JavaScript developers always jumping on the new framework of the week” HN, where sneering at web devs always gets upvotes and somehow never gets old
- joshmanders 4y ago
potamic 4y ago
Webdevs are very much part of this community, I don't think anyone will say otherwise. I definitely am not trying to malign anyone, just sharing my observations. This is of course a very subjective matter and I don't deny I could be far off from reality, but it's a personal observation for now. The community here believes strongly in critique and I hope we appreciate critique for what it is. On the topic, the latest kid on the block is deno. New runtime is cool, but having to rewrite userland is ludicrous. Now you have deno dotenv package, (inspired by node dotenv), oak middleware inspired by koa, semver, base64, a modern web framework... where's the end to this? Reinvent the entire node ecosystem and fragment the community? Now I never blame the creators because they are attempting something, but if this takes off I will blame the community. People should be up with their arms shouting what a terrible idea this is, but that kind of critique is something that is missing from this community. One of the best things about the web community is their unconditional positivity, but that is also their failing. I fear people will jump on bandwagon and embrace deno with both arms, we will see a race to rewrite all the popular node packages in deno, companies will open positions for deno developers, new developers will be asking whether they should take the node course or the deno course, all until the next asteroid arrives.

auggierose 4y ago

> Skepticism towards new ideas and a stubbornness to resist change are very important attributes for any community. It ensures that when a change does happen it passes through a very strict filter ensuring only the best of ideas get through The problem is, how do you ensure that a "very strict filter" is also a good filter? The best stuff gets caught up in those filters, because the best stuff looks like nothing the filter has seen before. Or it might indeed look too much like something the filter has seen plenty of times before and (rightfully) dismissed as unimportant. And in the end it is not so much a community embracing the best idea, but the best idea taking a sledge hammer to the community. I like React, and I think it is improving quite nicely. But Svelte seems also an interesting thing to try out.