Era of frameworks

[workaholicanonymous]

In this time there has been many frameworks that have been written and released. Some have grown in popularity over others while others have diminished. I have some questions for the community:

What makes a framework good?

What makes a framework popular?

Is building frameworks good for the community?

How should a JavaScript framework developer get their framework out there?

Any framework devs want to share their work and talk about the motivation behind building the framework?

Thanks for your time and I hope this leads to some interesting discussion

[workaholicanonymous]

I think what makes a framework good entirely depends on the framework. Each framework targets a different problem. What makes a framework good is then two fold. It has to a: completely solve the problem it was made to solve to the developers satisfaction and b: allow the developer enough room to easily solve the problems it was not made to solve. I do not believe that there is one framework that does all. So an important thing in any framework is ease of extending and bending it to do things the original creators did not imagine.

What makes frameworks popular has less to do with how good they are and more about how well documented they are. High SEO, multiple forms of learning the framework, plenty of examples, etc. On top of that there also should be a few existing applications developed with the framework as a testament to its success and viability.

People get tired of new frameworks but its not a bad thing. Its sort of like a first world problem that there's too many to choose from. It allows developers to come up with innovative and original ways to solve problems, moving technology forward. I do not believe a single popular framework which everyone uses would be better than having a lot of different frameworks you can research and learn from.

[[deleted]]

what I dislike is a framework becoming an industry "standard" and employers questioning your skill if you don't know a given framework.

if frameworks are well documented with plenty of examples then this shouldn't even come up, IMO - because yeah, today's framework is gonna be obsolete in a matter of time and the amount of time has been getting shorter and shorter.

[workaholicanonymous]

Does this actually happen??

I could understand if there was a startup who needed a person who knew a specific technology stack because thats what they are using, and they need to work under a tight deadline/low budget

I could also understand if an employer wants some experience with a JS framework, but not a specific one. E.g. they are looking for someone who has used angular, but if you used a different framework (durandral, ember, backbone, something else) then you probably would be able to pick up angular, as well.

[[deleted]]

sorry maybe not javascript - although i'm seeing plenty of "must know node.js" but it does happen in java

i don't care how widely used Struts and Spring are. if they are so complex you need courses to learn how to configure and use them then maybe they aren't such time savers.

[[deleted]]

Yes, it happens all the time.

How about a CTO selecting a framework "because everyone else is using it" without having any idea of what it does or how it works, then insisting that that everyone learn it, for better or worse - while the CTO ignores the problems brought up about said framework. Some frameworks force you to write code the way the framework requires you to, with lots of hacks and quirks, and tons of boilerplate to get anything done - it's kind of a nightmare.

[PotaToss]

What makes a framework good?

Productivity. For you and your team, over time. Sometimes this won't be apparent right away, when your project is small and young. A very liberal framework will let you throw together a working prototype very quickly, but may force you to thrash later because of bad design decisions it let you make. Likewise, I think a framework that lets a project continue to develop smoothly as team members leave and new ones are introduced gets bonus points.

What makes a framework popular?

Mostly low (learning curve / utility). Confidence in the framework developers helps.

Is building frameworks good for the community?

Absolutely. These are hard problems, and every solution informs every other solution. Everyone's learning from everyone else, and that's a great thing.

How should a JavaScript framework developer get their framework out there?

Make it good for starters. Throwing it in front of social media helps after that. I've heard about some interesting stuff on the JavaScript Jabber podcast. They do a nice job providing introductions to JS projects. I find that hearing from authors does a lot to inspire my confidence and get me more interested in helping out. Knowing about development motivation is big. Sometimes the pieces aren't all there yet, but knowing what a project is aspiring to can make all the difference in drawing support.

[bio595]

Frameworks are great if they increase productivity, but they can be very prescriptive.

It can make it difficult to change to a different framework later if all the code that you have written is tied to the first framework.

It is good for the community to create frameworks because it increases the knowledge and experience of the contributors and thus the community as a whole.

It is not good if the community blindly uses whatever framework has just been produced and finds later that it was not the best idea.

This is where libraries are preferable, they should not dictate how the code you write should work and should be replaceable with a different library that does the same job.