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Here's one: https://remix.run/ https://remix.run/ These grifters sell entire courses on the product, that's their game. So when you find an unmaintained Remix

Here's one: https://remix.run/ https://remix.run/ These grifters sell entire courses on the product, that's their game. So when you find an unmaintained Remix app at your company, well, the grifters got the ears of your junior devs :( And they just promote it and promote it: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/courses https://kentcdodds.com/courses Pure grift. But since most people are decent people they don't know and fall for it, and something like this influencer emerges. They have entire Discords of customers, the same as crypto scams. Edit: I don't know why people would downvote calling out a notable grifter in a thread that extended out to a discussion about influencers. WHICH influencers? Are we scared of that topic? The climate of the JS ecosystem didn't happen accidently. People fall victim to this shit right here on HN, and then write blog posts about what the fuck is wrong with frontend: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39453767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39453767 (This entire thread reads like deliberate testimonials.) Stop buying this stuff.

numinoid 2y ago
Not sure it's fair to characterize a repo with 6k + commits and the last being 10 hours ago as "pure grift".
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  I think that adds to my point. How does that have so many stars on github? The customers "star" it. Who uses this on a real app? It's alright to slowly accept the bitter truth that grifting scales.
  - numinoid 2y ago
    Not really sure that's relevant. Grift implies an intentional value extraction without providing anything. Using your example: I'm confident that the time spent working on remix and courses related to it resulted in far less monetary gain than spinning out courses on React. If you think Remix is misguided or a bad framework etc... that is very different from grifting. A corollary: Is Deno a grift because it shares the same creator as Node and has a paid product attached to it? In my opinion no but you might disagree... I'm mostly opposed to the idea remix in particular exists purely as a grift - love it or hate it there are far easier ways for someone with the influence of Kent to make money.
    - bloomingkales 2y ago
      Imagine someone made Deno with a corresponding course to go along with it. I would consider that a grift. https://frontendmasters.com/courses/remix/ https://frontendmasters.com/courses/remix/ That was the end goal for this whole thing. I do look at the pricing page (what are you trying to sell constantly?) on anything people put up on the internet and judge from there. You can have the last word and put in a testimonial for Remix, since I won't be budging on this. It's a rabbit hole for both you and me to keep going at this, as I've seen enough of this pattern. Consider me a neural net on this front (end).
      - numinoid 2y ago
        I'm not interested in writing a testimonial for Remix, merely commenting on the absurdity of calling a project of this scale as nothing more than a grift to sell educational content. There's no reference to these paid courses anywhere on the landing page, there's no callout for paid courses in the main navigation. The only mention of tutorials at all is buried in the community section which leads to: https://remix.guide/ https://remix.guide/ which seems to be unaffiliated with the Remix team, and has no section advertising paid courses anywhere. You're talking about a framework that has been acquired and subsequently used in production by a global company in Shopify - clearly there is something to the framework beyond being a vehicle for tutorial sales. Again, I want to be clear: This is NOT an endorsement of Remix. Your line of thinking seems to be conspiratorial and not grounded in reality. You mention repeatedly about pricing and the end goal of funneling noobs toward course purchases... One would assume that in conspiring to sell courses the team behind Remix might actually advertise that they have courses for sale on their website. I have to be honest as a third party that a. doesn't work with remix, b. doesn't know anyone who works on remix, c. doesn't know you - it seems like you have a personal vendetta.
        bloomingkales 2y ago
        No personal vendetta. We sit here and punch the mysterious air as to why things are the way they are. I thought maybe we'd punch up at something that is plausibly a culprit. I'll admit it may be punching down, since this is just one dude. But then again, it's one dude who influenced a lot of people ... We can't just keep sitting here and blaming developers for being 1) New 2) Dumb 3) FOMO 4) Dumb 5) Unqualified You understand? It's worth looking at what content they are consuming and where the mindshare is being promoted from. It's worth asking who is selling them the idea of these frameworks.
- homebrewer 2y ago
  E.g. react-router was ready 5990 commits ago. It is a grift, they keep rewriting it and reengineering the API over and over and over again just to be able to sell more training. Look at wouter for what is possible if your motivation isn't selling training material. It was written and left alone, it works just as well, it's stable and doesn't change for no reason.
  - koakuma-chan 2y ago
    Do you know anyone who bought courses on react-router? The documentation is right there for free.
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    - bloomingkales 2y ago
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    - azemetre 2y ago
      Wasn't react-training.com owned by the react-router people? I wonder what the training consultants recommended to use for routing...
      - koakuma-chan 2y ago
        And what's wrong with that? It works good if you're building an SPA in React.
        azemetre 2y ago
        You asked if react-router team sold courses, they sold consulting services. Seems like a conflict of interest to sell consulting on a tool you built while introducing breaking changes (but hey if you need quick help throw us a few dozen grand). I guess that's fine for you but it's very smarmy IMO.
tshaddox 2y ago
I think you're mistaken. I can't comment on the quality of Kent C. Dodds' educational content, but his formal affiliation with Remix was short-lived. The courses that he sells have no apparent affiliation with Remix (the open source project or the company). Incidentally, Remix is an open source project started by the React Router devs to create more framework features around React Router. React Router is probably one of the most widely deployed JavaScript libraries ever and is the furthest thing imaginable from a project created by grifters to sell online courses. Remix was also a company that raised a $3 million seed round and then was acquired by Shopify (for presumably much more than $3 million). Shopify appears to continue to invest heavily in Remix and React Router development, and appears to use Remix heavily.
- cmgriffing 2y ago
  While his formal affiliation may have been short-lived, do you think he got a cut of the sale to Shopify? If so, not disclosing that when he promotes Remix is a bit shady. Nice dude and all, but that is one thing I take issue with still.
  - tonyhb 2y ago
    There are only a few popular, promoted alternatives to NextJS right now (that I know of): Remix and TanStack. That is, if you're fully React focused, ofc. I dont see promoting Remix as a red flag.
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    - cmgriffing 2y ago
      Promoting it? No problem. But promoting something you profited from without disclosing it violates FCC rules for broadcasting. I would say influencers aren't technically broadcasting but they are in principle.
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    I don't think it's weird to like a piece of software and have that lead you to work at the company that builds the software and also to develop an educational course about that software.
flufluflufluffy 2y ago
I find Remix really nice to work with, it’s a framework that embraces and utilizes web standards (what the article is arguing we should get back to doing more), and I’ve learned everything I know about it (and the majority of everything else I know about front end dev) for free. It’s not like you need to purchase courses to learn. At the same time, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with selling courses to teach people about a framework. But the idea that the entire thing was created just to sell courses about it is not true. But I do agree that there’s just way too much fast moving, breaking changes on front end in general, frameworks released every other week, etc…
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- nullpoint420 2y ago
  But it _doesn't_ use web standards. It has it's own mental model and gotchas just like any other framework.
  - uhoh-itsmaciek 2y ago
    It does. It bridges a purely server-rendered architecture with a SPA really nicely, and does it mostly with web standards. You don't need to run any client-side JS with a Remix app. It's not perfect, but there are a lot of benefits to its approach. I won't try to argue there's no front-end treadmill: there absolutely is, and I had to laugh reading the current top comment because I just had to migrate off Apollo CLI at work. But this "The web was perfect in 1999--stop changing things!" take is tedious and intellectually lazy. (I'm not accusing you of it, but it's certainly a common sentiment.) We should be working together to solve concrete problems, and avoid both chasing the latest fads and pretending there's no room for improvement.
    - bloomingkales 2y ago
      It’s a nuanced topic. If we want to dive in, I can provide a glimpse into the first layer of the anus as we stick our head into it. When we shepherded a lot of sheep into frontend via these courses and boot camps and quasi courses/bootcamps in the form of certain frameworks (hey, you only know this one framework?), we created a cohort of something. Now what is that something? It’s not really the tinkerer that loves doing this stuff and would have found a way to express themselves (please pay attention to the word “express”, as in, can’t help it). That something was … a pragmatic identity. A pragmatic identity was formed where “I am now a software engineer because I and my cohort agree, we really know how to do our stuff”. Such a cohort can only be fueled by identity, not passion. This cohort can’t innovate and must cling to the identity of their original accreditation, so they will always be defensive. That’s the first layer of the asshole as we enter it, it goes deeper. The second layer involves large amounts of money and people’s livelihoods, to which they’d defend unto death.
cpursley 2y ago
And what have you put out into the world?
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  I called out a grifter.
  - cpursley 2y ago
    And what have you put out into the world?
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    - bloomingkales 2y ago
      I push back on stuff like this so developers who feel the feet on their throat from this culture can have some confidence to nudge the boot off. There goes my hero: https://youtu.be/EqWRaAF6_WY https://youtu.be/EqWRaAF6_WY
      - ewzimm 2y ago
        I can tell you that your response is at least relevant for me because I happen to be working with Remix right now, not because of any influencers but just because I happen to be working on a Shopify project. I've seen lots of frameworks come and go and evolve, so I'm not surprised that this one changes a lot, but I always enjoy getting opinions from people with experience. Whether or not I'll end up resenting it in the future, I don't know, but at least I'll have been warned.
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jwhiles 2y ago
In case anyone isn't familiar with remix, bloomingkales seemingly has no familiarity with the framework. Obviously it's not been created as a conspiracy to sell training courses. The idea is ludicrous. It's quite a nice framework. It's easy to learn, straightforward, the people in their discord are very helpful. It has the backing of a large company (shopify) who are using it extensively. It is, I'll say again, obviously not a conspiracy to sell training courses.
nobleach 2y ago
I get why you might feel that way. Ryan and Michael used to run a company based around React training. They created React Router which some people love to complain about. They've since moved over to working for Shopify. Shopify pays for their development on React Router/Remix. They do NOT sell training anymore. Kent on the other hand, worked with them for a short time. He makes his living selling training. Filling in a gap (selling training) isn't really a grift is it? The dude's got a family and he's found something he can sell.
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numinoid 2y ago

Not sure it's fair to characterize a repo with 6k + commits and the last being 10 hours ago as "pure grift".

bloomingkales 2y ago
I think that adds to my point. How does that have so many stars on github? The customers "star" it. Who uses this on a real app? It's alright to slowly accept the bitter truth that grifting scales.
- numinoid 2y ago
  Not really sure that's relevant. Grift implies an intentional value extraction without providing anything. Using your example: I'm confident that the time spent working on remix and courses related to it resulted in far less monetary gain than spinning out courses on React. If you think Remix is misguided or a bad framework etc... that is very different from grifting. A corollary: Is Deno a grift because it shares the same creator as Node and has a paid product attached to it? In my opinion no but you might disagree... I'm mostly opposed to the idea remix in particular exists purely as a grift - love it or hate it there are far easier ways for someone with the influence of Kent to make money.
  - bloomingkales 2y ago
    Imagine someone made Deno with a corresponding course to go along with it. I would consider that a grift. https://frontendmasters.com/courses/remix/ https://frontendmasters.com/courses/remix/ That was the end goal for this whole thing. I do look at the pricing page (what are you trying to sell constantly?) on anything people put up on the internet and judge from there. You can have the last word and put in a testimonial for Remix, since I won't be budging on this. It's a rabbit hole for both you and me to keep going at this, as I've seen enough of this pattern. Consider me a neural net on this front (end).
    - numinoid 2y ago
      I'm not interested in writing a testimonial for Remix, merely commenting on the absurdity of calling a project of this scale as nothing more than a grift to sell educational content. There's no reference to these paid courses anywhere on the landing page, there's no callout for paid courses in the main navigation. The only mention of tutorials at all is buried in the community section which leads to: https://remix.guide/ https://remix.guide/ which seems to be unaffiliated with the Remix team, and has no section advertising paid courses anywhere. You're talking about a framework that has been acquired and subsequently used in production by a global company in Shopify - clearly there is something to the framework beyond being a vehicle for tutorial sales. Again, I want to be clear: This is NOT an endorsement of Remix. Your line of thinking seems to be conspiratorial and not grounded in reality. You mention repeatedly about pricing and the end goal of funneling noobs toward course purchases... One would assume that in conspiring to sell courses the team behind Remix might actually advertise that they have courses for sale on their website. I have to be honest as a third party that a. doesn't work with remix, b. doesn't know anyone who works on remix, c. doesn't know you - it seems like you have a personal vendetta.
      - bloomingkales 2y ago
        No personal vendetta. We sit here and punch the mysterious air as to why things are the way they are. I thought maybe we'd punch up at something that is plausibly a culprit. I'll admit it may be punching down, since this is just one dude. But then again, it's one dude who influenced a lot of people ... We can't just keep sitting here and blaming developers for being 1) New 2) Dumb 3) FOMO 4) Dumb 5) Unqualified You understand? It's worth looking at what content they are consuming and where the mindshare is being promoted from. It's worth asking who is selling them the idea of these frameworks.
homebrewer 2y ago
E.g. react-router was ready 5990 commits ago. It is a grift, they keep rewriting it and reengineering the API over and over and over again just to be able to sell more training. Look at wouter for what is possible if your motivation isn't selling training material. It was written and left alone, it works just as well, it's stable and doesn't change for no reason.
- koakuma-chan 2y ago
  Do you know anyone who bought courses on react-router? The documentation is right there for free.
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  - bloomingkales 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - azemetre 2y ago
    Wasn't react-training.com owned by the react-router people? I wonder what the training consultants recommended to use for routing...
    - koakuma-chan 2y ago
      And what's wrong with that? It works good if you're building an SPA in React.
      - azemetre 2y ago
        You asked if react-router team sold courses, they sold consulting services. Seems like a conflict of interest to sell consulting on a tool you built while introducing breaking changes (but hey if you need quick help throw us a few dozen grand). I guess that's fine for you but it's very smarmy IMO.

tshaddox 2y ago

I think you're mistaken. I can't comment on the quality of Kent C. Dodds' educational content, but his formal affiliation with Remix was short-lived. The courses that he sells have no apparent affiliation with Remix (the open source project or the company). Incidentally, Remix is an open source project started by the React Router devs to create more framework features around React Router. React Router is probably one of the most widely deployed JavaScript libraries ever and is the furthest thing imaginable from a project created by grifters to sell online courses. Remix was also a company that raised a $3 million seed round and then was acquired by Shopify (for presumably much more than $3 million). Shopify appears to continue to invest heavily in Remix and React Router development, and appears to use Remix heavily.

cmgriffing 2y ago
While his formal affiliation may have been short-lived, do you think he got a cut of the sale to Shopify? If so, not disclosing that when he promotes Remix is a bit shady. Nice dude and all, but that is one thing I take issue with still.
- tonyhb 2y ago
  There are only a few popular, promoted alternatives to NextJS right now (that I know of): Remix and TanStack. That is, if you're fully React focused, ofc. I dont see promoting Remix as a red flag.
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  - cmgriffing 2y ago
    Promoting it? No problem. But promoting something you profited from without disclosing it violates FCC rules for broadcasting. I would say influencers aren't technically broadcasting but they are in principle.
- tshaddox 2y ago
  I don't think it's weird to like a piece of software and have that lead you to work at the company that builds the software and also to develop an educational course about that software.

flufluflufluffy 2y ago

I find Remix really nice to work with, it’s a framework that embraces and utilizes web standards (what the article is arguing we should get back to doing more), and I’ve learned everything I know about it (and the majority of everything else I know about front end dev) for free. It’s not like you need to purchase courses to learn. At the same time, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with selling courses to teach people about a framework. But the idea that the entire thing was created just to sell courses about it is not true. But I do agree that there’s just way too much fast moving, breaking changes on front end in general, frameworks released every other week, etc…

deleted 2y ago
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nullpoint420 2y ago
But it _doesn't_ use web standards. It has it's own mental model and gotchas just like any other framework.
- uhoh-itsmaciek 2y ago
  It does. It bridges a purely server-rendered architecture with a SPA really nicely, and does it mostly with web standards. You don't need to run any client-side JS with a Remix app. It's not perfect, but there are a lot of benefits to its approach. I won't try to argue there's no front-end treadmill: there absolutely is, and I had to laugh reading the current top comment because I just had to migrate off Apollo CLI at work. But this "The web was perfect in 1999--stop changing things!" take is tedious and intellectually lazy. (I'm not accusing you of it, but it's certainly a common sentiment.) We should be working together to solve concrete problems, and avoid both chasing the latest fads and pretending there's no room for improvement.
  - bloomingkales 2y ago
    It’s a nuanced topic. If we want to dive in, I can provide a glimpse into the first layer of the anus as we stick our head into it. When we shepherded a lot of sheep into frontend via these courses and boot camps and quasi courses/bootcamps in the form of certain frameworks (hey, you only know this one framework?), we created a cohort of something. Now what is that something? It’s not really the tinkerer that loves doing this stuff and would have found a way to express themselves (please pay attention to the word “express”, as in, can’t help it). That something was … a pragmatic identity. A pragmatic identity was formed where “I am now a software engineer because I and my cohort agree, we really know how to do our stuff”. Such a cohort can only be fueled by identity, not passion. This cohort can’t innovate and must cling to the identity of their original accreditation, so they will always be defensive. That’s the first layer of the asshole as we enter it, it goes deeper. The second layer involves large amounts of money and people’s livelihoods, to which they’d defend unto death.

cpursley 2y ago

And what have you put out into the world?

bloomingkales 2y ago
I called out a grifter.
- cpursley 2y ago
  And what have you put out into the world?
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - bloomingkales 2y ago
    I push back on stuff like this so developers who feel the feet on their throat from this culture can have some confidence to nudge the boot off. There goes my hero: https://youtu.be/EqWRaAF6_WY https://youtu.be/EqWRaAF6_WY
    - ewzimm 2y ago
      I can tell you that your response is at least relevant for me because I happen to be working with Remix right now, not because of any influencers but just because I happen to be working on a Shopify project. I've seen lots of frameworks come and go and evolve, so I'm not surprised that this one changes a lot, but I always enjoy getting opinions from people with experience. Whether or not I'll end up resenting it in the future, I don't know, but at least I'll have been warned.
      - deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jwhiles 2y ago

In case anyone isn't familiar with remix, bloomingkales seemingly has no familiarity with the framework. Obviously it's not been created as a conspiracy to sell training courses. The idea is ludicrous. It's quite a nice framework. It's easy to learn, straightforward, the people in their discord are very helpful. It has the backing of a large company (shopify) who are using it extensively. It is, I'll say again, obviously not a conspiracy to sell training courses.

nobleach 2y ago

I get why you might feel that way. Ryan and Michael used to run a company based around React training. They created React Router which some people love to complain about. They've since moved over to working for Shopify. Shopify pays for their development on React Router/Remix. They do NOT sell training anymore. Kent on the other hand, worked with them for a short time. He makes his living selling training. Filling in a gap (selling training) isn't really a grift is it? The dude's got a family and he's found something he can sell.

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