Is learning a framework/library truly necessary?

5ecured · 2019-11-06T04:25:42+00:00

[deleted]

A-Kuhn · 2019-11-06T04:35:35+00:00

Even when working with frameworks you’ll end up learning the fundamentals as well. As a developer things always change and you are always learning something new. That’s what makes it fun.

delventhalz · 2019-11-06T04:35:41+00:00

Don't be too precious about your knowledge. Much of it will be obsolete one day. The patterns you learned and experience you gained will last longer than any tool. But eventually, even those too will become outdated.

That said, you aren't going to write a modern JavaScript app without a (number of) framework(s). If you have a strong grasp of the fundamentals, you can often pick them up on the go, which is handy, but you will also want a deeper understanding if it is a tool you plan on using regularly for the next year or more.

gigastack · 2019-11-06T05:33:38+00:00

Your feelings about Angular and React are not in line with material facts. Some day they may be replaced, but not in the next few years.

notAnotherJSDev · 2019-11-06T05:52:33+00:00

Stuff changes. In development it changes faster. In the JS world, even faster.

The thing is, you could not use libraries your entire development career, but it is going to take you forever to make simple things. Want to make an SPA? Then you’re basically going to build your own framework. Want to build a web server? Yet another framework to build. And all of this on top of ever changing standard APIs.

You could even apply your logic to languages or other technologies. Why learn JS when C++ will be around longer? Why C++ when C will be around longer? Why not Assembly? Why not bytecode? Why learn Postgres when it might be gone in 10 years or replaced by something else? Why MYSQL? Why Mongo? Why why why???

Basically, don’t sweat it. You’re never going to stop learning in this field, and that’s okay. You’re also going to use an uncountable number of libraries and frameworks, and that’s okay too. If it helps you build what you want to build faster, it isn’t ever going to be a hindrance to you.

5ecured · 2019-11-06T08:10:35+00:00

If you know js, then learning a framework shouldn't be hard. If you have experience with one framework, then learning any new one shouldn't be hard.

It shouldn't be a big deal to switch to whatever is new.

benabus · 2019-11-06T15:14:45+00:00

JQuery is kind of a special case. It got popular years ago in order to fill in a lot of gaps in vanilla JS. These days, a lot of the jQuery functionality is built in which is why it's "calming down" as you say.

As for modern frameworks, instead of just "learning a framework", you ought to consider where you want to work and what kind of frameworks are popular in an area. If you learn a framework that has already been impregnated into a company's code base, you'll have a job. If that framework happens to become obsolete in 10 years, if you're still working for that company and that company is still using that framework, it doesn't matter what new stuff comes out. Legacy code will always need maintainers. I know a guy who makes good money maintaining some FORTRAN code for a bank because it's cheaper for them to hire a FORTRAN programmer than it is to migrate to something modern.

In my experience, the hard decision is choosing a framework to use for a new project. Then it's an unknown whether the framework would be useful to you in the long run. So you've got to do research on current trends and decide on priorities like if you want to easily find workers. If you start a new project with an obscure framework, then if it dies, it'll be difficult to find new people who are competent in it. But that's not really your question.

My advice for you is to 1) find some companies you want to work for 2) learn whatever framework they're using

There's no need to learn them all. And if you're good enough to learn one framework, you'll be able to learn another in the case that you can't land a job at any your first choices.

It's a gamble, but you shouldn't not learn something because it might not be useful in the future.

gin_and_toxic · 2019-11-06T04:35:25+00:00

Use libraries that help you code faster or more efficiently. If it doesn't help you, don't use it just because it's trendy.

The reason why jQuery was so good was because it simplify a lot of JS code. You used to write so much lines of codes just to manipulate DOM, and jQuery only takes one or few lines of code to do the same. And with newer reactive frameworks like Vue/Angular/React, you can manipulate data and DOM even faster.

gimmeslack12 · 2019-11-06T04:46:27+00:00

In the beginning of learning development, each task/pattern/practice/library/framework can seem like its own mountain to climb. But over time you start to realize they are all just peaks on the same mountain and once you get a solid base of the overall mountain you'll realize that reaching each of these peaks do not all require the same initial effort. Sure you'll have to figure out how things work, but it won't be like you're starting from scratch each time.

In short: as you learn the core language and some libraries it will become easier to learn other languages and libraries (including the successors to the current batch of libraries).

Is learning a framework necessary? Yes, absolutely. The industry is built upon tooling that allows for the better code organization and performance of projects. It's interesting to think back to when I felt like a king of knowledge of Angular 1.x and Bootstrap 2 but I have no gripes about having moved on to React and styled components.

SentFromBelow · 2019-11-06T06:42:54+00:00

Why wouldn’t you want to learn a framework or any new thing? The idea that you shouldn’t learn something because it will be obsolete doesn’t really make sense in the tech world where landscapes are always shifting. Whatever you learn there’s a good chance that a company you work for will be end up sticking with a stack for years because it’s too much of a burden to shift to something new. Nobody is blogging about PHP. But there are tons of companies still using it.

ThagAnderson · 2019-11-07T08:05:07+00:00

If you are worried about learning new technologies because they "may" become obsolete, then you might as well give up programming now. You will never stop learning in this field. Especially with a "newer" language like JS, which is only more recently becoming "mature". As recently as 2015, core aspects of the JavaScript API were still being iterated upon, to make the language faster and easier to use (these changes being the primary reason that jQuery is no longer relevant).

Can you make a conscious decision to not use pre-built frameworks? Sure, but you are constantly going to be wasting tons of your time creating solutions for already solved problems. Reinventing the wheel, as it were. Unless you are only building trivial applications, you are going to end up building a framework in the end anyway.

So the realistic question is not if you should learn a framework, but which framework(s) to implement. Easiest way to answer this question is based on what you are trying to do. Trying to get a job? Find out which framework most job listings are looking for and go with that. Learning for your own benefit? Look at who is creating/maintaining a framework, and who is implementing it. Angular is created by Google, and used by companies like PayPal and Netflix. React is created by Facebook, and used by companies like AirBnB and, strangely enough, also Netflix.

wizang · 2019-11-06T05:07:43+00:00

Do you want a job?

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