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I’m still waiting for every other framework to realize that jQuery was right all along. But if these guys are only now reaching Knockout, I still have to wait

I’m still waiting for every other framework to realize that jQuery was right all along. But if these guys are only now reaching Knockout, I still have to wait for them to catch up to Backbone.js, I guess.

devmor 3y ago
> I’m still waiting for every other framework to realize that jQuery was right all along. I find myself feeling this way a lot while writing front-end code. While I am primarily a back-end developer by trade, I find myself working in Vue or React quite often just to get things done and regularly come to the realization that the majority of the reactivity in the projects I am working on is either unnecessary or so simple that it would be handled with less complexity as a line or two of jQuery.
- interactivecode 3y ago
  Thats similar to me as a frontend dev seeing all the backend complexity and thinking it would be easier just to read and write a json file instead of a db + apis. It works but on longer projects where requirements can explode in complexity it becomes a problem. It really helps to have tools that can stay maintainable.
  - tambourine_man 3y ago
    Yeah, sure. It's pure joy of mantainability and dependencies. Just watch out for that dust, if you sneeze next to a 5 year old Node.js/React project, the whole thing falls apart.
  - devmor 3y ago
    That comparison works against your point quite well because there are an absolutely incredible amount of backend services built with scalability and sharded postgres dbs with redis caching or what-have-you that would have been perfectly served by a perl script and an sqlite file.
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  We sometimes have to step back from our high tech bubble. Check out jQuery's usage on the web. The unbeatable juggernaut that React seems from up here clocks at under 5% market share. It's sobering. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library
  - joaonmatos 3y ago
    There might be a long tail phenomenon at play here. Do you have stats on number of developers using the tech or on page views for each framework?
    - tambourine_man 3y ago
      Regarding page views, from a quick search, the only top 10 sites that use React are from Meta. So it’s either a strange distribution curve, with a bump in the neck and a colossal tail, or we’re trapped in a bubble and blinded by our own crazy reality distortion field. As to number of developers, if a lot more of us are needed to write a tiny fraction of the pages, maybe that’s the symptom right there.
paavohtl 3y ago
jQuery is not a framework by any definition of the word. It's a collection of largely unnecessary (in modern times) utility functions for imperative DOM manipulation.
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  Library vs framework is a largely pointless distinction, IMO.
  - dbbk 3y ago
    Not really. A framework is something that has opinions about the structure and architecture of your whole application. A library doesn't.
- troupo 3y ago
  It's still much easier to manipulate DOM with jQuery than with any of the "modern times" APIs. Hell, even querying the DOM is still easier with jQuery.
  - recursive 3y ago
    Barely. document.querySelectorAll() has about 98% of the capability, and 10% extra too.
    - tambourine_man 3y ago
      You probably haven’t used jQuery beyond the basics. Its API is much more powerful, composable and terse than the native one. We lost a great opportunity to standardize on what everybody was already using.
    - troupo 3y ago
      jQuery: returns an array-like structure that is consistent with the rest of the API whether it's one element returned, no elements are returned, or many elements are returned. DOM: - few if any DOM methods work on an array of elements. Or even on a NodeList - `querySelector`: returns null if not found, Element if found. Throws if there's a selector syntax exception. So you have to wrap it in a try/catch and in a check against null when you need to use it - `querySelectorAll`: returns NodeList, Throws if there's a selector syntax exception. NodeList is not an array. It's so badly designed that even the .forEach method was only added to it two years after the method was introduced. If you need anything but .forEach, it's better to call Array.from() on the result than deal with iterator shenanigans of it's sparse interface But sure, "it has 98% and 10% extra", whatever that means. And that's just two of the methods. Everything else is just as bad: 90s-era verbose imperative object-oriented API.
twic 3y ago
One day my MooTools skills will be cutting edge again, i'm positive.
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  I was very glad when jQuery won. I never liked MooTools or Prototype, really. jQuery was love at first sight [site]
gryzzly 3y ago
<3 backbone

devmor 3y ago

> I’m still waiting for every other framework to realize that jQuery was right all along. I find myself feeling this way a lot while writing front-end code. While I am primarily a back-end developer by trade, I find myself working in Vue or React quite often just to get things done and regularly come to the realization that the majority of the reactivity in the projects I am working on is either unnecessary or so simple that it would be handled with less complexity as a line or two of jQuery.

interactivecode 3y ago
Thats similar to me as a frontend dev seeing all the backend complexity and thinking it would be easier just to read and write a json file instead of a db + apis. It works but on longer projects where requirements can explode in complexity it becomes a problem. It really helps to have tools that can stay maintainable.
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  Yeah, sure. It's pure joy of mantainability and dependencies. Just watch out for that dust, if you sneeze next to a 5 year old Node.js/React project, the whole thing falls apart.
- devmor 3y ago
  That comparison works against your point quite well because there are an absolutely incredible amount of backend services built with scalability and sharded postgres dbs with redis caching or what-have-you that would have been perfectly served by a perl script and an sqlite file.
tambourine_man 3y ago
We sometimes have to step back from our high tech bubble. Check out jQuery's usage on the web. The unbeatable juggernaut that React seems from up here clocks at under 5% market share. It's sobering. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library
- joaonmatos 3y ago
  There might be a long tail phenomenon at play here. Do you have stats on number of developers using the tech or on page views for each framework?
  - tambourine_man 3y ago
    Regarding page views, from a quick search, the only top 10 sites that use React are from Meta. So it’s either a strange distribution curve, with a bump in the neck and a colossal tail, or we’re trapped in a bubble and blinded by our own crazy reality distortion field. As to number of developers, if a lot more of us are needed to write a tiny fraction of the pages, maybe that’s the symptom right there.

paavohtl 3y ago

jQuery is not a framework by any definition of the word. It's a collection of largely unnecessary (in modern times) utility functions for imperative DOM manipulation.

tambourine_man 3y ago
Library vs framework is a largely pointless distinction, IMO.
- dbbk 3y ago
  Not really. A framework is something that has opinions about the structure and architecture of your whole application. A library doesn't.
troupo 3y ago
It's still much easier to manipulate DOM with jQuery than with any of the "modern times" APIs. Hell, even querying the DOM is still easier with jQuery.
- recursive 3y ago
  Barely. document.querySelectorAll() has about 98% of the capability, and 10% extra too.
  - tambourine_man 3y ago
    You probably haven’t used jQuery beyond the basics. Its API is much more powerful, composable and terse than the native one. We lost a great opportunity to standardize on what everybody was already using.
  - troupo 3y ago
    jQuery: returns an array-like structure that is consistent with the rest of the API whether it's one element returned, no elements are returned, or many elements are returned. DOM: - few if any DOM methods work on an array of elements. Or even on a NodeList - `querySelector`: returns null if not found, Element if found. Throws if there's a selector syntax exception. So you have to wrap it in a try/catch and in a check against null when you need to use it - `querySelectorAll`: returns NodeList, Throws if there's a selector syntax exception. NodeList is not an array. It's so badly designed that even the .forEach method was only added to it two years after the method was introduced. If you need anything but .forEach, it's better to call Array.from() on the result than deal with iterator shenanigans of it's sparse interface But sure, "it has 98% and 10% extra", whatever that means. And that's just two of the methods. Everything else is just as bad: 90s-era verbose imperative object-oriented API.

twic 3y ago

One day my MooTools skills will be cutting edge again, i'm positive.

tambourine_man 3y ago
I was very glad when jQuery won. I never liked MooTools or Prototype, really. jQuery was love at first sight [site]

gryzzly 3y ago

<3 backbone