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I've spent 12 years in the JS ecosystem. It really is that bad and it got significantly worse in the past couple of years. It was hard to see it however until I

by spion 3y ago

I've spent 12 years in the JS ecosystem. It really is that bad and it got significantly worse in the past couple of years. It was hard to see it however until I tried working in some of the newer ecosystems like Elixir, Rust, Go. Things break all the time and a variety of tools and technologies just don't work with eachother. Making choices is like stepping on land mines - tomorrow the ecosystem might decide that choice was wrong and abandon all effort into it (e.g. next server components breaking most css-in-js libraries). It doesn't have to be this way, there are ecosystems where this is not the case. Despite that there is still a lot to like and enjoy. TypeScript is really excellent, building UI with things like tailwind can be a pure joy when you get into the flow, reactivity libraries like MobX / Solid and frameworks like Svelte largely make you feel like you're only writing business logic when managing state, etc. But overall the ecosystem is extremely "internally incompatible" for lack of a better word

spion 3y ago
here is a sample of well-meaning maintainers franatically trying to deal with situations like these and maintain some semblance of compatibility https://phryneas.de/react-server-components-controversy https://phryneas.de/react-server-components-controversy
throwitaway1123 3y ago
> next server components breaking most css-in-js libraries This is a legitimate gripe, and React Server Components in general have introduced a lot of complexity. It's worthing noting though that you don't have to use server components and Next's new App Router. The Pages Router still works. I'm ok with a framework occasionally (not excessively) introducing a new way of doing things as long as the old way is still supported (much like React still supports class components despite the introduction of hooks).
- spion 3y ago
  My point is that this sort of thing doesn't happen so lightly in other ecosystems. And the "you don't have to use it" excuse isn't used when the project clearly wants to move in that direction: - others will jump on the feature and use it. you might not have to use it but libraries you depend on may decide otherwise and rewrite - you didn't have to use ReactHooks, but try using Apollo client or react-query without them now, or try finding any non-hooks documentation in general. - you will slowly see bugs being neglected if they're not about the new and shiny. - there is no equivalent of useContext for class components So the word "supports" here carries very little weight in practice because the rest of the ecosystem constantly rewrites.
  - throwitaway1123 3y ago
    > My point is that this sort of thing doesn't happen so lightly in other ecosystems. React has been around for 10 years (almost 11 since we're a few days away from 2024). Many of the ecosystems you're holding up as the epitomes of stability have had their fare share of large scale changes in that same time frame. Remember go before generics, or Rust before async landed [1]? Elixir's Phoenix didn't even have its first commit when React was released [2]. > there is no equivalent of useContext for class components Class components can still use context [3]. They obviously can't use the useContext hook, because class components aren't compatible with hooks, but that's kind of a tautology. > you didn't have to use ReactHooks, but try using Apollo client or react-query without them now, or try finding any non-hooks documentation in general. Library authors moved to hooks because sharing stateful logic was difficult before hooks. I never bought into the GraphQL hype train, but I remember there being a ton of verbose render props necessary to make GraphQL libraries like Apollo work before hooks. I don't think anyone really complained about data fetching libraries adopting hooks. You could argue that the react devs should have created the perfect library in 2013 complete with hooks, but I can forgive them for not having perfect foresight. Like I said, if an API changes occasionally over a decade I'm ok with it. Technology should be stable, not frozen. [1] https://areweasyncyet.rs/ https://areweasyncyet.rs/ [2] https://groups.google.com/g/phoenix-talk/c/l8kIhc_LC7o https://groups.google.com/g/phoenix-talk/c/l8kIhc_LC7o [3] https://legacy.reactjs.org/docs/context.html#classcontexttype https://legacy.reactjs.org/docs/context.html#classcontexttyp...
    - spion 3y ago
      You can't use more than one context in React classes "React" has been around for 10 years but in practice its been 3.5 different frameworks - the original - the class version (still close enough to original) - hooks version (largely a whole different concept and "compatible" only superficially while the rest of the ecosystem starts writing incompatible things) - server components, and `use`, which monkey patch fetch and already broke half of the ecosystem. And no, hooks are still far from perfect and are infact very unintuitive and awkward to pretty much anyone who hasn't used React. Additionally, there were designs possible to evolve from class components, its just that the React team cared more about - "innovation", - "functional" aesthetic preferences - enabling a DCE compiler rather than compatibility and continuity Example design that would prioritise compatibility and continuity while still enabling all the current features of hooks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35192312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35192312 Again, this is _not enough_ attention to backward compatibility and stability in other ecosystems, even older ones like Python.

by spion 3y ago

spion 3y ago

here is a sample of well-meaning maintainers franatically trying to deal with situations like these and maintain some semblance of compatibility https://phryneas.de/react-server-components-controversy https://phryneas.de/react-server-components-controversy

throwitaway1123 3y ago

> next server components breaking most css-in-js libraries This is a legitimate gripe, and React Server Components in general have introduced a lot of complexity. It's worthing noting though that you don't have to use server components and Next's new App Router. The Pages Router still works. I'm ok with a framework occasionally (not excessively) introducing a new way of doing things as long as the old way is still supported (much like React still supports class components despite the introduction of hooks).

spion 3y ago
My point is that this sort of thing doesn't happen so lightly in other ecosystems. And the "you don't have to use it" excuse isn't used when the project clearly wants to move in that direction: - others will jump on the feature and use it. you might not have to use it but libraries you depend on may decide otherwise and rewrite - you didn't have to use ReactHooks, but try using Apollo client or react-query without them now, or try finding any non-hooks documentation in general. - you will slowly see bugs being neglected if they're not about the new and shiny. - there is no equivalent of useContext for class components So the word "supports" here carries very little weight in practice because the rest of the ecosystem constantly rewrites.
- throwitaway1123 3y ago
  > My point is that this sort of thing doesn't happen so lightly in other ecosystems. React has been around for 10 years (almost 11 since we're a few days away from 2024). Many of the ecosystems you're holding up as the epitomes of stability have had their fare share of large scale changes in that same time frame. Remember go before generics, or Rust before async landed [1]? Elixir's Phoenix didn't even have its first commit when React was released [2]. > there is no equivalent of useContext for class components Class components can still use context [3]. They obviously can't use the useContext hook, because class components aren't compatible with hooks, but that's kind of a tautology. > you didn't have to use ReactHooks, but try using Apollo client or react-query without them now, or try finding any non-hooks documentation in general. Library authors moved to hooks because sharing stateful logic was difficult before hooks. I never bought into the GraphQL hype train, but I remember there being a ton of verbose render props necessary to make GraphQL libraries like Apollo work before hooks. I don't think anyone really complained about data fetching libraries adopting hooks. You could argue that the react devs should have created the perfect library in 2013 complete with hooks, but I can forgive them for not having perfect foresight. Like I said, if an API changes occasionally over a decade I'm ok with it. Technology should be stable, not frozen. [1] https://areweasyncyet.rs/ https://areweasyncyet.rs/ [2] https://groups.google.com/g/phoenix-talk/c/l8kIhc_LC7o https://groups.google.com/g/phoenix-talk/c/l8kIhc_LC7o [3] https://legacy.reactjs.org/docs/context.html#classcontexttype https://legacy.reactjs.org/docs/context.html#classcontexttyp...
  - spion 3y ago
    You can't use more than one context in React classes "React" has been around for 10 years but in practice its been 3.5 different frameworks - the original - the class version (still close enough to original) - hooks version (largely a whole different concept and "compatible" only superficially while the rest of the ecosystem starts writing incompatible things) - server components, and `use`, which monkey patch fetch and already broke half of the ecosystem. And no, hooks are still far from perfect and are infact very unintuitive and awkward to pretty much anyone who hasn't used React. Additionally, there were designs possible to evolve from class components, its just that the React team cared more about - "innovation", - "functional" aesthetic preferences - enabling a DCE compiler rather than compatibility and continuity Example design that would prioritise compatibility and continuity while still enabling all the current features of hooks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35192312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35192312 Again, this is _not enough_ attention to backward compatibility and stability in other ecosystems, even older ones like Python.