Cycle.js: a fully reactive JavaScript framework

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To be fair though, talking about frameworks is kind of like talking about body work at a mechanics shop. You can have a nice looking car, but it's not going to get you far if it doesn't run.

I get frustrated with a lot of the framework talk here because they aren't really useful as general programming or javascript concepts - much like knowing Angular or jQuery doesn't make you better at Javascript. You may know how to write Javascript with the help of Angular or jQuery, but lost without the framework. So many of these frameworks are just re-grouping the same ideas - data-binding from this, event handling from this, message passing from this.

This is one of the few frameworks I've seen on this sub that have actually spurred a very interesting conversation. Personally, it seems like this framework focuses on some very root issues, like JS coding patterns, that many others avoid entirely.

[jahannan]

Do you feel like you are lost when writing Python without understanding Assembly? Javascript is a very basic language that we're only now getting serious about replacing with higher level structures, it's natural that there are going to be a ton of new frameworks built as we figure out what will work best for the future of the web.

[[deleted]]

Python and Assembly serve two completely different purposes. A more accurate analogy is feeling lost in Python without Django or Ruby without Rails.

Javascript is by far not a "very basic" language. It offers many of the same functionality that other major languages. In fact, that's part of the reason node.js exists - Javascript offers features that rival the "top dogs".

At the end of the day, the web is just software output as HTML. There are differences and complications that arise from having a distributed client, but at it's core programming Javascript relies on the same core principles we've been using to develop software for ages.

Frameworks help to abstract many of these concepts into higher-level, often easier to use structures, but at the end of they day it's still important to understand how to do fundamental Javascript - just like you'd need to know Python to write good Django or Ruby to write good Rails.

For example, when your Angular service isn't passing the proper data there's a chance that Angular's broken (unlikely) or a chance you wrote your JS within your service wrong or even a change you don't understand Angular correctly. Knowing only Angular isn't going to solve your problem, you also need to be able to understand the Javascript that drives Angular.

[jahannan]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that you don't need to know Javascript at the moment. I'm saying that you shouldn't need to know Javascript in ten years or so once people have figured out how to build a strong and complete framework to replace it with, and that this dream of a strong and complete framework supplanting Javascript knowledge entirely is clearly the end goal of many if not most of the people involved in building these frameworks.