9 ms·

I think it's great that there is such an amount of active development in the JS sphere, and I'm sure your framework is fantastic - so don't take this as directe

I think it's great that there is such an amount of active development in the JS sphere, and I'm sure your framework is fantastic - so don't take this as directed at your framework specifically. That being said... I am however feeling so overexposed to new libraries and frameworks that I can hardly muster the energy to even look at it. I constantly feel that I'm behind on my homework having to evaluate new libraries and frameworks showing up. Every two weeks, another one shows up with another paradigm shifting approach. I am getting increasingly apprehensive about committing myself to learning anything new, because in two weeks there's another shiny framework that everyone is proclaiming as the next wunderkind. Sorry about the 6 months spent learning it, but now we're doing something new. The amount of time where I feel that I am confident and productive with a library or framework is getting shorter and shorter, and more and more of my time learning, I feel is wasted. Sorry to barf all over your post - like I said, it's nothing specifically with your framework, and it looks very shiny on the surface, but I think I'll just get back to work instead of studying it in greater detail.

kuyfiuyg 11y ago
So don't study it then? It's perfectly fine to continue using what you are using. Most recruiters talking to me still ask for Angular, even if I consider it a little hairy and prefer not using it. After being in the JS sphere for a while and living with these changes, I have learned a lot. Because there is nothing new under the sun, these all do pretty much the same thing - but in different ways. There are tradeoffs, and by working with and making big and small products in different frameworks, I've learned how to learn. Picking up new things are not always needed, but the more you expose yourself to different libs, frameworks and platforms, the better you get at it.
- kyllo 11y ago
  The problem is, it's our fault that recruiters are now asking for Angular, because we sold our employers on Angular and built their apps in Angular. Now that Angular is mainstream and has fallen out of fashion, they need to hire more developers to maintain all those Angular apps we built for them.
  - zilean 11y ago
    It is our fault if Angular was not a best tool for a job at the time, otherwise we should be happy that we have better tools coming to help us doing our job.
  - hippich 11y ago
    What is problem for you - for some might be job security :) And I think Angular is still very much in fashion. At least this is impression I am getting from occasional talks with random recruiters.
    - 0xCMP 11y ago
      Right, his point is that it's in fashion with employers and recruiters because there are things to be maintained and sometimes even built. Where everyone else on HN that stays up with JS is trying to things with maybe a reactjs, or this, now.
    - dkersten 11y ago
      this is impression I am getting from occasional talks with random recruiters What's in fashion isn't what the recruiters are talking about, but what the developers are talking about. Recruiters will always lag a bit behind whats actually in fashion.
      - hippich 11y ago
        I guess it is also depends on who is judge - either business (my case) or developers (yours :))
        dkersten 11y ago
        If you're talking about finding a job now, then I absolutely agree. But if you're talking about what technology developers will persuade their employers to adopt in the future, then developers are the ones who decide. Employers seem to be influenced by what the developers push (maybe not short term, but longer term it seems to me to be that way). Recruiters go where the employers are. Therefore, IMHO, ultimately its the (vocal) developers who pick the fashion.
- alexc05 11y ago
  I "failed" a job interview recently to the reason that they didn't have faith in my jQuery (any by extension Javascript) skills. I managed to write a multi-page response explaining how the modern frameworks were moving away from jquery in favour of data bindings, virtual dom, etc... while I acknowledge that there is still a place for jQuery, it has a very much diminished role in modern web development. In the end, I never sent the email in response. While it was cathartic to write, I really didn't want to come across as "sour grapes". (and truth be told, I respected their decision... I'd feel a better fit in a more technology forward environment, their reliance on "old faithful" technologies can still make money) I feel like even angular has come-and-gone as a framework the 1.x just isn't performant on busy pages. Anything with a log of ng-repeats gets out of hand. Though I suppose that could also mean that I'm writing bad pages too. My most recent favorite is Leo Horie's https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/ https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/ We've got some of that running in production and it really is beautiful to work with. I'd like to try REACT, but haven't found the right project for it yet. I've sortof started rambling here... my point was I share your experience with employers looking for "old" tech.
  - Meai 11y ago
    I dont understand, if mithril is good why would you want to try react? Personally I'm trying to solve a problem (make complex ui easy to code and understand) Either mithril solves it or it doesnt..?
    - zilean 11y ago
      Chances are React would be better supported long-term. React Native could be a selling point for a lot of people too.
    - alexc05 11y ago
      Totally fair question. I think the reason I want to try react is to compare and contrast the various approaches. I've written both angular & mithril for production. So far I haven't enjoyed anything as much as mithril. It is so clean & pure. It stays almost completely out of your way. In fact there are places where I'm actually running angular INSIDE mithril pages (long story, part of migrating a project from angular to mithril, without losing legacy pages) I would like to start a react project from scratch to see what it's like. To compare what one really, really smart guy (Leo) came up with against the mighty multibillion dollar facebook. Leo has a day job and mithril is spare-time, facebook has a staff dedicated to react. Facebook is committed to working on react long term as a corporate strategy. Leo could get bored and walk away. Additionally there's the aspect of looking at react-native. It makes me suspect that there may be a long term value in being aware of the patterns used in the react. I struggle to believe it could be better than mithril, but who knows? I haven't tried it yet! Finally there's the "learning things is fun" side of things.
gothy 11y ago
I understand you very well. My todo list called 'stuff to check out' grows so fast that sometimes I'm thinking about clearing it out and just start another one.
- martincerdeira 11y ago
  Your problem is that have a life. Spend all day working and then checking out new stuff. Don't take a shower, eat on your laptop, etc. =)
  - gothy 11y ago
    Hehe, I've done that when I was younger :)
  - addicted 11y ago
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/technology/in-busy-silicon-valley-protein-powder-is-in-demand.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/technology/in-busy-silicon...
hippich 11y ago
If you already found good tools and happy with these - stick to it. If you are still looking - I find description on the site is pretty clear about idea behind approach, which made me quickly do proper decision to learn it/skip it this time.
ryan-allen 11y ago
I'm sure some scientist said the same thing about some early stage germ of a discovery once upon a time. But it's true, we still get very far along with Newtonian physics, we don't need a full working knowledge of quantum mechanics to get our jobs done day-to-day. Not that what we're doing is anything comparable, but maybe the analogy fits somewhat.
lhorie 11y ago
Take a look at Mithril. People are frequently surprised by its small learning curve (and for many, the majority of the learning is for knowledge that you can go and apply outside of Mithril)
- moopsy 11y ago
  Tired of looking at new javascript frameworks? Look at this javascript framework that will fix everything!
  - dbpatterson 11y ago
    To give him credit, the thing that is appealing about it is that there is very little to it that's not javascript. So you can very easily expect to figure out everything you need to know about it in a day or two, vs however long it take to familiarize yourself with one of these massive new frameworks.
  - lhorie 11y ago
    Funny. But the "will fix everything" mentality is ironically why most frameworks are hard to evaluate and learn. For learning, what you really want is a small set of new concepts to learn that easily map to things you are already familiar with, good documentation to refer to, and a active community that can answer your questions within a couple of minutes. That's why I mentioned Mithril.
- wambotron 11y ago
  I'm using Mithril because of how easy it is to look over the source. I didn't want to have another framework with a huge learning curve (even for senior devs) like Angular. It's well documented, and you can read the entire Mithril source and understand what it's doing within a few hours. That means I don't have to bother training people on it. I can give any new people the API and a link to the source and they should be able to contribute within days.
- kyllo 11y ago
  Lately I've been helping to maintain a sizeable open source app that someone else wrote in Mithril with MSX: https://github.com/ScienceCommons/www https://github.com/ScienceCommons/www and I have to agree that the learning curve has been very gentle. It's every bit as powerful as Angular but it feels so much more like writing vanilla JS with a lightweight MVC structure to it. It keeps the code easy to understand and maintain.
lectrick 11y ago
> I constantly feel that I'm behind on my homework having to evaluate new libraries and frameworks showing up. Every two weeks, another one shows up with another paradigm shifting approach. Every two weeks? Try every day. I hate to be that guy, but this sounds like whining. You're a developer, it's an incredible privilege (we're part of one of the fastest-growing, most-successful businesses ever, and we basically get paid to solve puzzles by writing machines directly from our minds and in most dev shops I've worked in nobody cares if you roll in at 10am, not to mention that we get compensated quite well while arguably becoming ultimately smarter than doctors yet without any required certification or schooling... I mean, in the history of human jobs, I can't imagine it getting much better!!), and staying on top of new developments is part of our job description. If you're getting fatigued, perhaps it's time to take that vacation you've been putting off, or to (wo)man-up and ask your superiors for more. Or to ask yourself if this is the right career path for you (although there's so much work now that you can get by just fine even relying on decades-old technology/libraries/languages). OR... to specialize. The full-stack developer's days are unfortunately numbered, there's no way a full-stack developer can keep up with every new development while keeping his job anymore. I myself gave up on keeping up with frontend around the time Angular came out...
- hnrem 11y ago
  "it's an incredible privilege" -- how do you figure that? It's as accessible as accountancy, and I wouldn't say that's a privilege either, unless you're going to bring in the lack of educational opportunities available to bedouin kids. Maybe it's an accomplishment, it's a job, but how is it a privilege?
  - lectrick 11y ago
    I filled out my explanation further.
    - hnrem 11y ago
      Thanks. That looks like the SV experience. I realise that this is an SV site, but it sure is tiring hearing the 1%s point of view as if it's the norm across the industry globally.
aikah 11y ago
> I am however feeling so overexposed to new libraries and frameworks that I can hardly muster the energy to even look at it. That's the nature of the job. In the front-end new frameworks are born all the time, new apis are created, new paradigms are "invented". Coming up with the "perfect" framework is clearly a work in progress. Here is a list of the techs I had to learn and work with during my career : - flex - jquery - extjs - backbonejs - angularjs 1.x - Reactjs - angularjs 2.X And i'm only talking about "view frameworks" here. Not even about the crazy js pipelines involving build tools, running on nodejs , 3 different CSS pre- processors , ... And in 1 year i'm pretty sure i'll have to work with yet another new framework because managers think framework Z isn't cool enough anymore. Again that's the nature of the job,because front-end techs are evolving. Everybody was praising backbone 3/4 years ago. Then everybody was praising Angular then everybody is praising React as the new hot stuff. In the front end, either you keep on learning new stuff, or you're out of job. Those who believe they have "job security"(as I read in this thread) because they chose angular are lying to them self. Being a front-end developer means having to learn a shit tons of libraries , techs and apis everyday. You can't just tell yourself , "I'll learn X and i'll be all set" like with server-side techs. Yet today the biggest challenge isn't even choosing a framework, but more like choosing how to transition from ES5 to ES6. Because the tools aren't ready.
- loudmax 11y ago
  I don't see the frustration so much about job security as about not being able to really get the most out of a technology before it becomes obsolete. It's one thing to be able to simply use some technology to get the job done. It's something else to deeply understand it and to become fluent in its paradigms and write code that is idiomatic and elegant. When a developer has to spend half the time learning new frameworks, it isn't so much about the loss of job security, it's the loss of craftsmanship.
- slg 11y ago
  The obvious followup question (not necessarily directed at you) is why do front-end technologies appear to be so much more transitory than back-end ones?
hnrem 11y ago
Geography. The replies I've read, as they so often do, ignore geography. SV might move rapidly from one to the next, but the city I'm in is more conservative and moves slower, so all I've ever seen much of from recruiters are jquery, knockout, angular. SV is the gladiatorial arena, and only the survivors make it through the filters to elsewhere, so elsewhere has fewer to deal with. If you engage with SV news while living elsewhere you'll still be trying to keep up, but if you hang back, things are a bit more laid back. Or, make the decision to ignore every other tech. If the next one is along shortly, you'll not likely miss much.
- ChiperSoft 11y ago
  > all I've ever seen much of from recruiters are jquery, knockout, angular A year ago they weren't even asking for angular.
smanuel 11y ago
That comment! That's exactly how I feel about every new js framework popping out from nowhere. But I accidentally clicked on the title. The site looks cool and guess what, a framework which is faster that React and doesn't make you put xml in js. And it grabbed my attention. I don't know whether I'll ever use it but it will be on my radar for sure. Especially if they don't lie about how fast it is.
daenz 11y ago
I feel what you're saying. With regards to this and similar projects, I think the important thing is to be familiar with reactive programming. To me, it was an eye-opening new paradigm to develop in.
pointernil 11y ago
This. To me this -) is a sign of an area or areas of still not recognized core problems leading to tackling it from different angles -) it could be connected to the average age of developers in the field responsible for the choice of their tools. They will settle for something with time ... eventually ;) -) bears resemblance with an earlier me, eager to find the latest, newest and most importantly most different way to ... well, what actually? Most probably traverse the unknown landscapes of new, landscapes of "my way" -) is worst than it used to be, as the _really_ old ppl say ;) ... or I changed the sides, moved on on this spectrum of professional attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
hoprocker 11y ago
This is seriously one reason I've been looking at career-switching to being a machinist. A new technology can come along, but it has to establish itself, and then you can take time and get really proficient at it. That, plus the more grey hairs a machinist has, the more they're respected (usually).
z3t4 11y ago
Instead of learning a new framework, try learning a new paradigm. You can then apply that knowledge in whatever new shiny tool your boss want you to use to build the next big thing.
rhapsodyv 11y ago
Man, a few hours ago I was debating with some team mates about js frameworks. In the middle of this ocean of frameworks I keep going with ExtJS. And I'm very criticized about this. And today the discussion is as always - that it's a monster and I need try ember ou angular etc etc... But I keep using ExtJs happily focusing in my business and almost never worrying about why something not work and wondering how to use new new coolest javascript/css/html thing - I almost never touch html and css since I begin to use ExtJS. I'm happy and it's working.
- tracker1 11y ago
  You might actually want to spend some time looking into useing node/babel to transpile ES6/7 syntax JS into ES5.. this will give you a leg up in writing inherited classes with JS... alternatively there is TypeScript, which you may also like and be more productive with. That said, I think that ExtJS's UI is starting to look a little long in the tooth, but it's still usable. I really never liked it... class based hierarchies in JS always seemed like a waste to me. That said, if that's your path, there are still some newer tools (namely node+babeljs) that can greatly improve your development experience... I think the module and class syntax from es6 would be a boon for you, along with being able to use es7 async/await combined with a fetch shim...
scorpion032 11y ago
Which is the reason, it is an appropriate time to back and stay with React for the long term. React has so many technical benefits that is all covered through so many posts - That declarative is better, Fast DOM manipulation with Virtual DOM is nice and a great development API and syntax sugar with JSX is wonderful. Having said all of that, I think what seals the deal in favour of React is that it is being used by Facebook on their homepage for half a decade and in all likely hood going to be continued to, which means you're assured of incremental upgrades and regularly maintained and yet no radical shifts, which would warrant a large change for your product. I think Facebook has hit the abstraction level perfectly with "Product Engineering" and "Library Development" or "Infrastructure Development". This abstraction may not work well for all use cases. But for a large audience this is what is needed and where it is needed, it fits in perfectly.

kuyfiuyg 11y ago

So don't study it then? It's perfectly fine to continue using what you are using. Most recruiters talking to me still ask for Angular, even if I consider it a little hairy and prefer not using it. After being in the JS sphere for a while and living with these changes, I have learned a lot. Because there is nothing new under the sun, these all do pretty much the same thing - but in different ways. There are tradeoffs, and by working with and making big and small products in different frameworks, I've learned how to learn. Picking up new things are not always needed, but the more you expose yourself to different libs, frameworks and platforms, the better you get at it.

kyllo 11y ago
The problem is, it's our fault that recruiters are now asking for Angular, because we sold our employers on Angular and built their apps in Angular. Now that Angular is mainstream and has fallen out of fashion, they need to hire more developers to maintain all those Angular apps we built for them.
- zilean 11y ago
  It is our fault if Angular was not a best tool for a job at the time, otherwise we should be happy that we have better tools coming to help us doing our job.
- hippich 11y ago
  What is problem for you - for some might be job security :) And I think Angular is still very much in fashion. At least this is impression I am getting from occasional talks with random recruiters.
  - 0xCMP 11y ago
    Right, his point is that it's in fashion with employers and recruiters because there are things to be maintained and sometimes even built. Where everyone else on HN that stays up with JS is trying to things with maybe a reactjs, or this, now.
  - dkersten 11y ago
    this is impression I am getting from occasional talks with random recruiters What's in fashion isn't what the recruiters are talking about, but what the developers are talking about. Recruiters will always lag a bit behind whats actually in fashion.
    - hippich 11y ago
      I guess it is also depends on who is judge - either business (my case) or developers (yours :))
      - dkersten 11y ago
        If you're talking about finding a job now, then I absolutely agree. But if you're talking about what technology developers will persuade their employers to adopt in the future, then developers are the ones who decide. Employers seem to be influenced by what the developers push (maybe not short term, but longer term it seems to me to be that way). Recruiters go where the employers are. Therefore, IMHO, ultimately its the (vocal) developers who pick the fashion.
alexc05 11y ago
I "failed" a job interview recently to the reason that they didn't have faith in my jQuery (any by extension Javascript) skills. I managed to write a multi-page response explaining how the modern frameworks were moving away from jquery in favour of data bindings, virtual dom, etc... while I acknowledge that there is still a place for jQuery, it has a very much diminished role in modern web development. In the end, I never sent the email in response. While it was cathartic to write, I really didn't want to come across as "sour grapes". (and truth be told, I respected their decision... I'd feel a better fit in a more technology forward environment, their reliance on "old faithful" technologies can still make money) I feel like even angular has come-and-gone as a framework the 1.x just isn't performant on busy pages. Anything with a log of ng-repeats gets out of hand. Though I suppose that could also mean that I'm writing bad pages too. My most recent favorite is Leo Horie's https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/ https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/ We've got some of that running in production and it really is beautiful to work with. I'd like to try REACT, but haven't found the right project for it yet. I've sortof started rambling here... my point was I share your experience with employers looking for "old" tech.
- Meai 11y ago
  I dont understand, if mithril is good why would you want to try react? Personally I'm trying to solve a problem (make complex ui easy to code and understand) Either mithril solves it or it doesnt..?
  - zilean 11y ago
    Chances are React would be better supported long-term. React Native could be a selling point for a lot of people too.
  - alexc05 11y ago
    Totally fair question. I think the reason I want to try react is to compare and contrast the various approaches. I've written both angular & mithril for production. So far I haven't enjoyed anything as much as mithril. It is so clean & pure. It stays almost completely out of your way. In fact there are places where I'm actually running angular INSIDE mithril pages (long story, part of migrating a project from angular to mithril, without losing legacy pages) I would like to start a react project from scratch to see what it's like. To compare what one really, really smart guy (Leo) came up with against the mighty multibillion dollar facebook. Leo has a day job and mithril is spare-time, facebook has a staff dedicated to react. Facebook is committed to working on react long term as a corporate strategy. Leo could get bored and walk away. Additionally there's the aspect of looking at react-native. It makes me suspect that there may be a long term value in being aware of the patterns used in the react. I struggle to believe it could be better than mithril, but who knows? I haven't tried it yet! Finally there's the "learning things is fun" side of things.

gothy 11y ago

I understand you very well. My todo list called 'stuff to check out' grows so fast that sometimes I'm thinking about clearing it out and just start another one.

martincerdeira 11y ago
Your problem is that have a life. Spend all day working and then checking out new stuff. Don't take a shower, eat on your laptop, etc. =)
- gothy 11y ago
  Hehe, I've done that when I was younger :)
- addicted 11y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/technology/in-busy-silicon-valley-protein-powder-is-in-demand.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/technology/in-busy-silicon...

hippich 11y ago

If you already found good tools and happy with these - stick to it. If you are still looking - I find description on the site is pretty clear about idea behind approach, which made me quickly do proper decision to learn it/skip it this time.

ryan-allen 11y ago

I'm sure some scientist said the same thing about some early stage germ of a discovery once upon a time. But it's true, we still get very far along with Newtonian physics, we don't need a full working knowledge of quantum mechanics to get our jobs done day-to-day. Not that what we're doing is anything comparable, but maybe the analogy fits somewhat.

lhorie 11y ago

Take a look at Mithril. People are frequently surprised by its small learning curve (and for many, the majority of the learning is for knowledge that you can go and apply outside of Mithril)

moopsy 11y ago
Tired of looking at new javascript frameworks? Look at this javascript framework that will fix everything!
- dbpatterson 11y ago
  To give him credit, the thing that is appealing about it is that there is very little to it that's not javascript. So you can very easily expect to figure out everything you need to know about it in a day or two, vs however long it take to familiarize yourself with one of these massive new frameworks.
- lhorie 11y ago
  Funny. But the "will fix everything" mentality is ironically why most frameworks are hard to evaluate and learn. For learning, what you really want is a small set of new concepts to learn that easily map to things you are already familiar with, good documentation to refer to, and a active community that can answer your questions within a couple of minutes. That's why I mentioned Mithril.
wambotron 11y ago
I'm using Mithril because of how easy it is to look over the source. I didn't want to have another framework with a huge learning curve (even for senior devs) like Angular. It's well documented, and you can read the entire Mithril source and understand what it's doing within a few hours. That means I don't have to bother training people on it. I can give any new people the API and a link to the source and they should be able to contribute within days.
kyllo 11y ago
Lately I've been helping to maintain a sizeable open source app that someone else wrote in Mithril with MSX: https://github.com/ScienceCommons/www https://github.com/ScienceCommons/www and I have to agree that the learning curve has been very gentle. It's every bit as powerful as Angular but it feels so much more like writing vanilla JS with a lightweight MVC structure to it. It keeps the code easy to understand and maintain.

lectrick 11y ago

> I constantly feel that I'm behind on my homework having to evaluate new libraries and frameworks showing up. Every two weeks, another one shows up with another paradigm shifting approach. Every two weeks? Try every day. I hate to be that guy, but this sounds like whining. You're a developer, it's an incredible privilege (we're part of one of the fastest-growing, most-successful businesses ever, and we basically get paid to solve puzzles by writing machines directly from our minds and in most dev shops I've worked in nobody cares if you roll in at 10am, not to mention that we get compensated quite well while arguably becoming ultimately smarter than doctors yet without any required certification or schooling... I mean, in the history of human jobs, I can't imagine it getting much better!!), and staying on top of new developments is part of our job description. If you're getting fatigued, perhaps it's time to take that vacation you've been putting off, or to (wo)man-up and ask your superiors for more. Or to ask yourself if this is the right career path for you (although there's so much work now that you can get by just fine even relying on decades-old technology/libraries/languages). OR... to specialize. The full-stack developer's days are unfortunately numbered, there's no way a full-stack developer can keep up with every new development while keeping his job anymore. I myself gave up on keeping up with frontend around the time Angular came out...

hnrem 11y ago
"it's an incredible privilege" -- how do you figure that? It's as accessible as accountancy, and I wouldn't say that's a privilege either, unless you're going to bring in the lack of educational opportunities available to bedouin kids. Maybe it's an accomplishment, it's a job, but how is it a privilege?
- lectrick 11y ago
  I filled out my explanation further.
  - hnrem 11y ago
    Thanks. That looks like the SV experience. I realise that this is an SV site, but it sure is tiring hearing the 1%s point of view as if it's the norm across the industry globally.

aikah 11y ago

> I am however feeling so overexposed to new libraries and frameworks that I can hardly muster the energy to even look at it. That's the nature of the job. In the front-end new frameworks are born all the time, new apis are created, new paradigms are "invented". Coming up with the "perfect" framework is clearly a work in progress. Here is a list of the techs I had to learn and work with during my career : - flex - jquery - extjs - backbonejs - angularjs 1.x - Reactjs - angularjs 2.X And i'm only talking about "view frameworks" here. Not even about the crazy js pipelines involving build tools, running on nodejs , 3 different CSS pre- processors , ... And in 1 year i'm pretty sure i'll have to work with yet another new framework because managers think framework Z isn't cool enough anymore. Again that's the nature of the job,because front-end techs are evolving. Everybody was praising backbone 3/4 years ago. Then everybody was praising Angular then everybody is praising React as the new hot stuff. In the front end, either you keep on learning new stuff, or you're out of job. Those who believe they have "job security"(as I read in this thread) because they chose angular are lying to them self. Being a front-end developer means having to learn a shit tons of libraries , techs and apis everyday. You can't just tell yourself , "I'll learn X and i'll be all set" like with server-side techs. Yet today the biggest challenge isn't even choosing a framework, but more like choosing how to transition from ES5 to ES6. Because the tools aren't ready.

loudmax 11y ago
I don't see the frustration so much about job security as about not being able to really get the most out of a technology before it becomes obsolete. It's one thing to be able to simply use some technology to get the job done. It's something else to deeply understand it and to become fluent in its paradigms and write code that is idiomatic and elegant. When a developer has to spend half the time learning new frameworks, it isn't so much about the loss of job security, it's the loss of craftsmanship.
slg 11y ago
The obvious followup question (not necessarily directed at you) is why do front-end technologies appear to be so much more transitory than back-end ones?

hnrem 11y ago

Geography. The replies I've read, as they so often do, ignore geography. SV might move rapidly from one to the next, but the city I'm in is more conservative and moves slower, so all I've ever seen much of from recruiters are jquery, knockout, angular. SV is the gladiatorial arena, and only the survivors make it through the filters to elsewhere, so elsewhere has fewer to deal with. If you engage with SV news while living elsewhere you'll still be trying to keep up, but if you hang back, things are a bit more laid back. Or, make the decision to ignore every other tech. If the next one is along shortly, you'll not likely miss much.

ChiperSoft 11y ago
> all I've ever seen much of from recruiters are jquery, knockout, angular A year ago they weren't even asking for angular.

smanuel 11y ago

That comment! That's exactly how I feel about every new js framework popping out from nowhere. But I accidentally clicked on the title. The site looks cool and guess what, a framework which is faster that React and doesn't make you put xml in js. And it grabbed my attention. I don't know whether I'll ever use it but it will be on my radar for sure. Especially if they don't lie about how fast it is.

daenz 11y ago

I feel what you're saying. With regards to this and similar projects, I think the important thing is to be familiar with reactive programming. To me, it was an eye-opening new paradigm to develop in.

pointernil 11y ago

This. To me this -) is a sign of an area or areas of still not recognized core problems leading to tackling it from different angles -) it could be connected to the average age of developers in the field responsible for the choice of their tools. They will settle for something with time ... eventually ;) -) bears resemblance with an earlier me, eager to find the latest, newest and most importantly most different way to ... well, what actually? Most probably traverse the unknown landscapes of new, landscapes of "my way" -) is worst than it used to be, as the _really_ old ppl say ;) ... or I changed the sides, moved on on this spectrum of professional attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

hoprocker 11y ago

This is seriously one reason I've been looking at career-switching to being a machinist. A new technology can come along, but it has to establish itself, and then you can take time and get really proficient at it. That, plus the more grey hairs a machinist has, the more they're respected (usually).

z3t4 11y ago

Instead of learning a new framework, try learning a new paradigm. You can then apply that knowledge in whatever new shiny tool your boss want you to use to build the next big thing.

rhapsodyv 11y ago

Man, a few hours ago I was debating with some team mates about js frameworks. In the middle of this ocean of frameworks I keep going with ExtJS. And I'm very criticized about this. And today the discussion is as always - that it's a monster and I need try ember ou angular etc etc... But I keep using ExtJs happily focusing in my business and almost never worrying about why something not work and wondering how to use new new coolest javascript/css/html thing - I almost never touch html and css since I begin to use ExtJS. I'm happy and it's working.

tracker1 11y ago
You might actually want to spend some time looking into useing node/babel to transpile ES6/7 syntax JS into ES5.. this will give you a leg up in writing inherited classes with JS... alternatively there is TypeScript, which you may also like and be more productive with. That said, I think that ExtJS's UI is starting to look a little long in the tooth, but it's still usable. I really never liked it... class based hierarchies in JS always seemed like a waste to me. That said, if that's your path, there are still some newer tools (namely node+babeljs) that can greatly improve your development experience... I think the module and class syntax from es6 would be a boon for you, along with being able to use es7 async/await combined with a fetch shim...

scorpion032 11y ago

Which is the reason, it is an appropriate time to back and stay with React for the long term. React has so many technical benefits that is all covered through so many posts - That declarative is better, Fast DOM manipulation with Virtual DOM is nice and a great development API and syntax sugar with JSX is wonderful. Having said all of that, I think what seals the deal in favour of React is that it is being used by Facebook on their homepage for half a decade and in all likely hood going to be continued to, which means you're assured of incremental upgrades and regularly maintained and yet no radical shifts, which would warrant a large change for your product. I think Facebook has hit the abstraction level perfectly with "Product Engineering" and "Library Development" or "Infrastructure Development". This abstraction may not work well for all use cases. But for a large audience this is what is needed and where it is needed, it fits in perfectly.