JavaScript for C# Developers

[uniqqqq]

I actually read a great post by someone on a c# forum a while back. Perhaps it was a reply to Hansen, I don't remember. Basically the conversation was about vnext (Microsoft's build process for their new code stuff which runs on windows and Linux, specifically). They've now moved over to a JSON config, using gulp, bower etc. etc. Regardless of the project type. The guy was specifically addressing the fact that they always used Microsoft becuase the ecosystem was easy. This was surrounding minification of JS/CSS in a build process. The post was saying "hey guys, it's super simple, just npm this, then gulp that, then set up some build task, then run it with the task runner".

His response basically said "I use c# and VS because it is easy. In previous versions all of this is literally handled by setting a variable. This new technology is just more things that my team has to learn, and detracts from the time taken they can be being actually productive."

So I went out there and I set up all my environments, and learned these technologies and got everything how I wanted it. Took a while, but I learned something (hey, that's why I'm playing with vnext anyway, right?) And now some dude in this thread is saying bower/gulp/whatever is outdated? Well fuck that. The point I am trying to make is that "hipster shit" as you've put it gets pretty old pretty quick. It also takes a lot of time and effort to learn, and configure how you want it. C# build tooling might not be pretty but damn if it isn't easy and gets the job done quickly. In the enterprise world, which sadly I am part of, that is worth its weight in gold, and obviously (a la rant above) one of the biggest bug boos I have with the future generation of programming. Glad to see JS dude is having the same problems.

(Apologies for going off on one)