3 ms·

I’ve been out of web dev for a while, but maybe the problem is there’s a new framework every 6 months and instead of delivering value to the end user, developer

I’ve been out of web dev for a while, but maybe the problem is there’s a new framework every 6 months and instead of delivering value to the end user, developers are rewriting their app in whatever the new framework is.

cluckindan 2y ago
Nice stereotype. Does it hold water? I’ve been using the same backend framework professionally for over 10 years, and the same frontend framework for over 6 years. Clearly your thoughts on the matter are not reflective of reality.
- loandbehold 2y ago
  Yes. If you have a working system built on 10 years old web framework, it's considered obsolete and in need of being upgraded/rewritten. Why? Imagine houses needing to be rebuild because its foundation is 10 years old.
  - cluckindan 2y ago
    Not talking about a single system here. The framework has gone through five major versions in that time and my projects usually last a couple months to a couple years.
bmurphy1976 2y ago
That's only part of the problem. Complexity and expectations have exploded in the last decade, while investment is getting tighter and tighter (for the average corporation anyway, not necessarily the big boys). The constant frameworks churn is one attempt at solving the complexity problem. Unfortunately I don't think it's working.
throwup238 2y ago
I don’t think that’s really the case anymore. The vast majority are on React, Vue, or Svelte (in order of my perception of their popularity). On the CSS side it seems like Tailwind and PostCSS has taken over. The heavier framework category is covered by Next.js. Other than Next, most of that popularity started solidifying in 2020. There are a bunch of newer frameworks like Astro and HTMX and so on, but it doesn’t seem like their adoption is eating into much of the bigger player’s “market.” There’s still the problem of many library authors playing fast and loose with semver breaking changes and absolutely gigantic dependency trees that exacerbate the issue. That’s where most of my churn comes from, not new frameworks.
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  Yeah but React is swapping major recommendations / styles ever 18 months still. How do you create a react application these days? Not create-react-app apparently?
  - promiseofbeans 2y ago
    NextJS for a SSR app, or Vite for a create-react-app style SPA. Vite has been great for the whole web-dev ecosystem, since it's super easy to configure, and very pluggable, so most frameworks are built around it now. That means you can write, e.g. a new CSS preprocessor, and if you make a Vite plugin, it works with (almost) every framework without extra effort
    - zkldi 2y ago
      But this isn't even true, and NextJS is well into egregiously complexity. Remix was an alternative option in the space that is now deprecated in all-but-name for React Router v7, which (for those just tuning back in), react router is now a framework. If you wrote your app in NextJS 2 years ago, you would already have to rewrite chunks of it to get it to compile today. These tools are NOT solidified, they are releasing breaking changes at least once a year.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    IMO create-react-app was a crutch for the last generation of build systems like webpack which were egregiously complex. Nowadays you just use Vite and start with whatever Github template has all the tech you need. Even starting a project from scratch is really simple now since the config files to get started are tiny and simple. There’s always the problem of outdated tutorials on the internet, but as a frontend dev spinning up a new project has never been simpler. The pace of development is definitely challenging. There’s so many libraries involved in any project that many fall behind in updating their code and application devs get caught in the crossfire when trying to upgrade (and woe be to you if someone added react = “*” somewhere in their peer dependencies).
graypegg 2y ago
This is obviously a pretty common belief, but I do think web dev gets held to a weird standard when framed as "the one with too much tech churn". Just because someone solves a problem with a new library or framework does not mean they solved a problem for all of web development, and I think the current concentration of applications made with boring things sort of reflects that. [0] > developers are rewriting their app in whatever the new framework is. That is obviously an over-exaggeration. Most devs, most teams, most companies are not open to rewriting any application ONLY because it's a new framework. If they are, they probably have other priorities that point at X framework/library when rewrites do happen, because a rewrite is big enough already without having to also create the pattern/library code. I will absolutely agree that we ignore the user more than we should. That should change. But I think people being excited about something on HN or some other metric of "a new framework every 6 months" isn't as causative as the usual hive mind would imply. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124699/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-frameworks-web/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124699/worldwide-develo...
- ehutch79 2y ago
  It's a lot better now, but there was absolutely a period when it felt like there was a new framework/library weekly. This was 5-10 years ago. 'Cambrian explosion' was the term going around. A lot of it was in react space, with router libraries or the newest data store being the thing you needed to be using. Definitely turned me off react, personally at least. The angular.js/angular2 migration was also a big pain around this time as well. There was a lot of social pressure from influencers on youtube and various social media that you NEEDED to switch now. This was the new hotness, it was blazing fast, anything else was obsolete tech debt. There was one instance of 'or you should be fired' that sticks with me. I think we're just used to the hyperbole and are all a lot more jaded now. Compare this to the backend, where django, rails, and the others haven't really changed. I haven't felt the need or pressure to rewrite my views/controllers/whatever at all.
  - crabmusket 2y ago
    > There was a lot of social pressure from influencers on youtube and various social media that you NEEDED to switch now I wish I had something more coherent to say about this, but: I think this is true, and it frustrates and saddens me that anybody took seriously what influencers on youtube had to say. It seems so obvious that they are there to get views, but even beside that, that they don't know anything about my app or the problems my users have.
squigz 2y ago
This would be a symptom of bad management, not bad developers. And to add to what others have said, this stereotype never really held up in my experience either. Any serious web dev shop is going to have the framework they use and stick with it for both long- and short-term clients. And there are many mature options here. I don't doubt this happens, a lot, but again, I think it's more about bad management than anything - and bad management will always make bad tech decisions, no matter the topic.
amrocha 2y ago
Can you name a single web framework with wide adoption that was released in the last 6 months? I expect you to delete your comment if you can’t.

cluckindan 2y ago

Nice stereotype. Does it hold water? I’ve been using the same backend framework professionally for over 10 years, and the same frontend framework for over 6 years. Clearly your thoughts on the matter are not reflective of reality.

loandbehold 2y ago
Yes. If you have a working system built on 10 years old web framework, it's considered obsolete and in need of being upgraded/rewritten. Why? Imagine houses needing to be rebuild because its foundation is 10 years old.
- cluckindan 2y ago
  Not talking about a single system here. The framework has gone through five major versions in that time and my projects usually last a couple months to a couple years.

bmurphy1976 2y ago

That's only part of the problem. Complexity and expectations have exploded in the last decade, while investment is getting tighter and tighter (for the average corporation anyway, not necessarily the big boys). The constant frameworks churn is one attempt at solving the complexity problem. Unfortunately I don't think it's working.

throwup238 2y ago

I don’t think that’s really the case anymore. The vast majority are on React, Vue, or Svelte (in order of my perception of their popularity). On the CSS side it seems like Tailwind and PostCSS has taken over. The heavier framework category is covered by Next.js. Other than Next, most of that popularity started solidifying in 2020. There are a bunch of newer frameworks like Astro and HTMX and so on, but it doesn’t seem like their adoption is eating into much of the bigger player’s “market.” There’s still the problem of many library authors playing fast and loose with semver breaking changes and absolutely gigantic dependency trees that exacerbate the issue. That’s where most of my churn comes from, not new frameworks.

datadrivenangel 2y ago
Yeah but React is swapping major recommendations / styles ever 18 months still. How do you create a react application these days? Not create-react-app apparently?
- promiseofbeans 2y ago
  NextJS for a SSR app, or Vite for a create-react-app style SPA. Vite has been great for the whole web-dev ecosystem, since it's super easy to configure, and very pluggable, so most frameworks are built around it now. That means you can write, e.g. a new CSS preprocessor, and if you make a Vite plugin, it works with (almost) every framework without extra effort
  - zkldi 2y ago
    But this isn't even true, and NextJS is well into egregiously complexity. Remix was an alternative option in the space that is now deprecated in all-but-name for React Router v7, which (for those just tuning back in), react router is now a framework. If you wrote your app in NextJS 2 years ago, you would already have to rewrite chunks of it to get it to compile today. These tools are NOT solidified, they are releasing breaking changes at least once a year.
- throwup238 2y ago
  IMO create-react-app was a crutch for the last generation of build systems like webpack which were egregiously complex. Nowadays you just use Vite and start with whatever Github template has all the tech you need. Even starting a project from scratch is really simple now since the config files to get started are tiny and simple. There’s always the problem of outdated tutorials on the internet, but as a frontend dev spinning up a new project has never been simpler. The pace of development is definitely challenging. There’s so many libraries involved in any project that many fall behind in updating their code and application devs get caught in the crossfire when trying to upgrade (and woe be to you if someone added react = “*” somewhere in their peer dependencies).

graypegg 2y ago

This is obviously a pretty common belief, but I do think web dev gets held to a weird standard when framed as "the one with too much tech churn". Just because someone solves a problem with a new library or framework does not mean they solved a problem for all of web development, and I think the current concentration of applications made with boring things sort of reflects that. [0] > developers are rewriting their app in whatever the new framework is. That is obviously an over-exaggeration. Most devs, most teams, most companies are not open to rewriting any application ONLY because it's a new framework. If they are, they probably have other priorities that point at X framework/library when rewrites do happen, because a rewrite is big enough already without having to also create the pattern/library code. I will absolutely agree that we ignore the user more than we should. That should change. But I think people being excited about something on HN or some other metric of "a new framework every 6 months" isn't as causative as the usual hive mind would imply. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124699/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-frameworks-web/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124699/worldwide-develo...

ehutch79 2y ago
It's a lot better now, but there was absolutely a period when it felt like there was a new framework/library weekly. This was 5-10 years ago. 'Cambrian explosion' was the term going around. A lot of it was in react space, with router libraries or the newest data store being the thing you needed to be using. Definitely turned me off react, personally at least. The angular.js/angular2 migration was also a big pain around this time as well. There was a lot of social pressure from influencers on youtube and various social media that you NEEDED to switch now. This was the new hotness, it was blazing fast, anything else was obsolete tech debt. There was one instance of 'or you should be fired' that sticks with me. I think we're just used to the hyperbole and are all a lot more jaded now. Compare this to the backend, where django, rails, and the others haven't really changed. I haven't felt the need or pressure to rewrite my views/controllers/whatever at all.
- crabmusket 2y ago
  > There was a lot of social pressure from influencers on youtube and various social media that you NEEDED to switch now I wish I had something more coherent to say about this, but: I think this is true, and it frustrates and saddens me that anybody took seriously what influencers on youtube had to say. It seems so obvious that they are there to get views, but even beside that, that they don't know anything about my app or the problems my users have.

squigz 2y ago

This would be a symptom of bad management, not bad developers. And to add to what others have said, this stereotype never really held up in my experience either. Any serious web dev shop is going to have the framework they use and stick with it for both long- and short-term clients. And there are many mature options here. I don't doubt this happens, a lot, but again, I think it's more about bad management than anything - and bad management will always make bad tech decisions, no matter the topic.

amrocha 2y ago

Can you name a single web framework with wide adoption that was released in the last 6 months? I expect you to delete your comment if you can’t.