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We need to be honest about this. JavaScript created loads of jobs, helped people buy houses and raise families. That's real impact, and I respect that. But I ca

by pyman 1y ago

We need to be honest about this. JavaScript created loads of jobs, helped people buy houses and raise families. That's real impact, and I respect that. But I can't help wondering: did we choose it because it was the best tool, or just the least terrible one that was easy enough to learn? I'm assuming that back then, people chose JS because of its simplicity. But maybe that simplicity came with an ocean of problems. It's like we all showed up to a party because the entrance was free, but no one mentioned that each drink would cost a week’s salary. Why bother though, devs are not the ones paying the bill, right?

austin-cheney 1y ago
JavaScript employment always felt like a spoons versus shovels type story. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/milton-friedman-shovels-vs-spoons-story/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/milton-friedman-shovels-vs-sp... If you cannot do the job without things like React, Angular, or jquery you may not be qualified to write that code. On a bigger level if you cannot create an original application from scratch you aren’t a senior developer and if you don’t measure things you aren’t an engineer. Nearly every other professional line of work has solved for this with some combination of licensing and/or broker/agent model. Developers tend to be scared shitless of industrial baselines of qualification assessments. Again, I am saying all this as someone who wrote JavaScript for employment for 15 years and still love writing in the language.
nchmy 1y ago
Would it be a good thing if a million unemployed devs were employed to just dig a big hole? Or, worse, cut down forests with axes? Job creation for the sake of it isn't a good thing. What matters is whether it creates actual value, and does so efficiently. The thrust of this, and many similar articles, is that it JS frameworks were largely a very inefficient, ineffective solution to a nonexistent problem. The fact that they're ALL now SSR-first - without the robust and comprehensive functionality of longstanding ssr frameworks, cms etc - proves this.

by pyman 1y ago

austin-cheney 1y ago

JavaScript employment always felt like a spoons versus shovels type story. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/milton-friedman-shovels-vs-spoons-story/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/milton-friedman-shovels-vs-sp... If you cannot do the job without things like React, Angular, or jquery you may not be qualified to write that code. On a bigger level if you cannot create an original application from scratch you aren’t a senior developer and if you don’t measure things you aren’t an engineer. Nearly every other professional line of work has solved for this with some combination of licensing and/or broker/agent model. Developers tend to be scared shitless of industrial baselines of qualification assessments. Again, I am saying all this as someone who wrote JavaScript for employment for 15 years and still love writing in the language.

nchmy 1y ago

Would it be a good thing if a million unemployed devs were employed to just dig a big hole? Or, worse, cut down forests with axes? Job creation for the sake of it isn't a good thing. What matters is whether it creates actual value, and does so efficiently. The thrust of this, and many similar articles, is that it JS frameworks were largely a very inefficient, ineffective solution to a nonexistent problem. The fact that they're ALL now SSR-first - without the robust and comprehensive functionality of longstanding ssr frameworks, cms etc - proves this.