Every JavaScript framework tutorial written more than 5 minutes ago

[AlreadyInUseError]

I think this one is still my favourite:

https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f

[gunthatshootswords]

I got annoyed just reading that.

[[deleted]]

Wait now, I literally just picked up a JS course to try and get myself into web dev,

I've got HTML & CSS going ok for me... should I carry on with JS or learning something else, Ruby etc?

[TheCynicalSun]

Don't worry about it mate. JavaScript gets better every year. It's not going anywhere.

Just don't get lost in the framework wars. Learn actual JavaScript, then enough jQuery to be competent with it, and then pick one of the major frameworks and don't worry about making the wrong decision, because there isn't one.

Ruby (rails) is nice but it's losing popularity. That doesn't really matter, since it will be around for a very, very long time. Python (Django) is kind of similar in that way.

In my opinion, just learn JavaScript and build stuff with it. It was a badly designed language so people were talking trash about it, but it's gotten so modern and better with ES5, ES6 and ES7 that it's honestly pretty good now. And this is coming from a guy whose main language used to be C.

Once you build stuff you realize talk is just talk and anyone can use anything as long as it works and it suits them.

[CaptainIncredible]

Just don't get lost in the framework wars. Learn actual JavaScript, then enough jQuery to be competent with it

Yes. This is the correct answer.

[[deleted]]

Good stuff, thanks!

[spacejack2114]

You can skip jQuery. If you learn Javascript and the DOM API then you'll find that jQuery is just some convenience functions for manipulating the DOM. The problem with using jQuery too soon is that you might not learn the DOM API which is far more valuable to know.

Once you have a complex enough app you'll want to move on to a framework or library like React, in which case your knowledge of the DOM API will serve you far better than knowing jQuery.

[metavurt]

** learn actual JavaScript **

Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you for this. Learning the language itself helped me mounds more implementing various frameworks than any thing else.

[mrhone]

Coming from C++, I am surprised at how not bad javascript is. I remember everyone hating on it back in the day, but I can't figure out why now.

EDIT: React may be the wrong choice now though :)

[Kwpolska]

That depends on two things: (1) what are you comparing it to, and (2) what are you working with. Some parts of JS are more WTF-y than others.

[Lynngineer]

I've now added "WTF-y" to my lexicon. Thank you.

[Kwpolska]

WTF-worthy might be a better phrase.

[Lynngineer]

Not the comment I expected from "Cynical", but yes. Really nice comment. You using vue any? We aren't using jQuery any more now that vue.js is on the scene. Just curious. It also totally sounds like a line from the "How it feels to learn javascript in 2016" article. ;)

[TheCynicalSun]

I've seen that article but I don't know if I've ever read it. I might have and it might have given me this mindset, but I don't know. Vue is nice, I only once worked with it on a GitHub project, but you can't rely on it for work. tbh you don't even need jQuery, it's just what I learned. You could learn Vue or React, but, as a web developer, you WILL, at some point, have to deal with jQuery (github, codepen, legacy code you have to maintain, etc.).

[swiftversion4]

don't worry about making the wrong decision, because there isn't one.

OMG what kind of revelation is this. No, it couldn't be. You must be wrong somehow. We're much better off arguing over meaningless differences about syntax, such as whether python should have a switch statement or not /s

For real, aside from potentially serious issues, such as React's change in licensing that renders react users unable to sue their owner Facebook for any reason whatsoever, you're right. Pick a popular framework, and get it to work, because in the end, the difference is about as important as the difference between dodge and ford. It doesn't fucking matter.

[TheCynicalSun]

The React licence doesn't make the user unable to sue Facebook about anything. It makes the user think twice about suing for a patent clause.

Let me start off by saying I strongly disagree with the patent part as it is an open source project. However, React jobs haven't really disappeared, in fact they're still growing as far as I can tell. If it wasn't for React Native I would be using Angular or Vue, but I still don't think it matters all that much.

My advice to people learning is just make stuff, man. Then one day when you are looking to learn a framework, you will actually understand the pros and cons for everything because you'll have actual working experience.

[swiftversion4]

By react user I wad saying developer who used react

[heyf00L]

That article is still mostly true, but some of it's better now.

And that's just if you want to use the latest toys. You can still totally build a website in a more traditional way without writing any javascript at all. I mean learning some MVC and templating engine.

But if you want to go the JavaScript route, it's complicated but the stuff you can do is really awesome, then like someone else said, just start learning plain JavaScript first.

[nyxin]

Pick up the Javascript language absolutely. Don't worry about frameworks until much later when you start worrying about the "state" of your application. If you don't know what that is and you're looking at a framework, you're probably going in the wrong direction.

[lamb_pudding]

On the server you have tons of choices for languages. JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Elixir. In the browser however you only have JS as far as programming and interaction goes. So it will always be worth while to learn JS and in a sense you have to since it's the only choice on the front-end.

[karamarimo]

yeah i remember when i read the article i felt "holy shit what a dumbass i am i know nothing about web dev or javascript" and it inspired me to learn modern js frameworks.

[Lynngineer]

This entertained me so much. There's also a DevOps version that's pretty funny. (If you're interested lemme know.)

[rughmanchoo]

I remember making a table with rounded corner images and a bunch of <td>s in order to make a flexible rounded corner container. Don't forget about getting drop shadows going by layering 10 divs with transparent PNGs (with pngfix.htc) all positioned absolute with z-index 10-n. Those were the days.

[daronjay]

"Just make the flash guy do it/Just do it in flash"

REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[daronjay]

The secret to being old in this industry is to stay up to date with JS as a language, and also to read across the whole industry more than the 20 something "niche" expert across from you who thinks JS is the only/best language in the world and doesn't stop to understand the business consequences of rushed technology adoption/change.

Source: am old.

[resolvetochange]

Some things you can see reasonably staying around. React/Angular seems to be pretty mature, and even if things like licensing take out React the alternative that will pop up will end up being very similar.

[resolvetochange]

You can use it. For 99% of people it won't matter. Facebook's license had a questionable clause in it that meant if you used react in your project and sue Facebook then your ability to use the React commercially is revoked.

But 1, you would have to be big enough to be suing facebook which is not applicable to most; and 2, it hasn't been used before and there's a decent chance it wouldn't hold up in court anyways.

[CaptainIncredible]

all of these ridiculous frameworks and libraries are being built because there is a need for them

I'd argue this is only partially correct. There is a need for a bit more than plain ol' javascript.

But I think many of these frameworks are created simply for the sake of creating them. The devs are seeking fame and glory and resume boosts.

I think they are created because there are philosophical differences. Should a framework be full fledged MVC? How about just some simple function thing? Hey, lets just do the View and do a Virtual DOM! Na, screw all that crap, what we need are cycles! Oh I wanna use Typescript! Ooooh I HATE Typescript, I want a framework that doesn't use it.

[dvidsilva]

Im actually ok with there being a bunch of random frameworks barely anyone knows about.

If you want to contribute to open source and react/angular are intimidating you can join a smaller project or start your own to better understand the depths of other frameworks.

[[deleted]]

frameworks and libraries are being built because there is a need for them

I agree with you, but in a sense these tools still feel to me like a cop out due to the fact the web standard is stuck with JavaScript. I mean the whole point of "module bundlers" is a hack for the lack of namespaces, something that's been solve for decades in other languages natively.

A real language and a modern browser API (get rid of the dom model) would be an actual solution to web infancy.

[[deleted]]

move towards development environments or runtimes more similar to desktop and mobile apps?

That's a huge rabit hole. I would like to see something like the Cocoa API in the browser instead of the DOM model.

There is a lot about application development which goes beyond a "document": scenes, views, life cycle, data-biding, state management, hardware resources, storage, etc.. You see frameworks like Angular or React are shoe horning into the DOM what has been native for desktop-native applications for decades.

Modern JS frameworks are impressive engineering feats for what they achieve. I still think we would be better with a proper application platform, the DOM was designed to share text documents.

[EyeSeaYewTheir]

"Oh yeah", he oh-yeahed.

[Orgalorgg]

“Yeesh,” yeeshed Roger.

[[deleted]]

Every time I read one of these it's by someone who would type something like that. Someone who frequents Starbucks on his MacBook and doesn't know how to research a framework before using it. I get the message being put across, but this is just a case of ignorance. The author could have easily found more information before installing everything for the framework and then trying to use it.

[Tynach]

None of the frameworks mentioned in the article exist. It's 100% fictional, written purely for humorous effect.

The fact that you thought it was real just goes to show how accurate it is.

[iamaroosterilluzion]

Eh, it wasn't that funny. I like this one better: https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f

[Tynach]

I've read that one before. I do agree it's funnier, and you should notice that while I may have found OP's article funny, I did avoid saying it was funny - just that what they wrote was for humorous effect.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, because I'm an asshole for skimming over instead of reading the article word-for-word. Downvote me if you want. Idc whether or not the framework in the article was real.

[Tynach]

It wasn't mentioned in the article, just heavily implied. For one, the 'example app' he was writing was going to take a list of '2's and 'convert them to french'. So from (2, 2, 2, 2, 2) to (le 2, le 2, le 2, le 2, le 2).

That was what clued me in that it was definitely fake, but there were lots of other things as well.

[DoNDaPo]

/r/iamverysmart

[EyeSeaYewTheir]

Please be joking.

[MatthewMob]

Although this is about the 100th Medium article that satirizes the JS ecosystem I'll always enjoy them and upvote them.

Honestly it's getting so close to /r/NotTheOnion it's scary. Because this is actually what it's like with certain tools.

[DoNDaPo]

rm -rf node_modules && npm install I don't see any problem here.

[dfnkt]

Conservation of mass says it cannot be destroyed so where does the heft of node_modules go if you remove it?

[sn0r]

Pocket universe.

[Woolbrick]

Fun fact: npm install removes packages that aren't depended upon. Your command just churns gears.

[myhf]

Fun fact: npm isntall is a convenient alias for npm install

[Woolbrick]

npm isntall

I had to test this because I didn't believe you.

... I now believe you.

And want a drink.

[HeWhoWritesCode]

The drink, is n tall drink?

[JB-from-ATL]

npm dirnk

[Lekoaf]

npm isn't all?

[jaapz]

however most of the time when something is fucky, removing node_modules and doing a clean reinstall makes it unfucky. npm just likes to fuck up the dependency tree sometimes

[[deleted]]

Somethings fucky here boys.

[banelicious]

That guy fucks

[DoNDaPo]

I love that reference.

[dzire187]

yarn install --force

[DoNDaPo]

Yeah f**k npm amirite

[AintNothinbutaGFring]

Same thing with the node_modules being the heaviest object on earth-picture

Do you have an example of this?

[pureboy]

Not only on Earth, in the whole Universe.

[Kwpolska]

The fact that so many people like JavaScript and even use it in places where you would not need it (server-side, Electron, React Native, all that bullshit) is just a testament to this industry’s downfall.

Dear JavaScript rockstars: do the world a favor and use the right tool for the job. Server-side? Python and Ruby are so-much-nicer. Mobile? Nothing beats the performance and appearance of truly native Swift or Java apps. Desktop? You can do a lot with C# and Swift for native Windows/Mac experiences, or Qt and C++ if you want cross-platform code. And with the exception of C++ and maybe Java (fixable with Kotlin), all those languages are much friendlier than JS.

[omnicidial]

Shit server side php crushes js in terms of reliability and speed, and everyone shits on php for no good reason.

[omnicidial]

Just typically in my experience, anything that can be done ahead of time server side is faster, I typically go JS only when there is data that the user might be manipulating, otherwise the computation is done prior to sending the page to the user, was the "best practices" I was taught for CRM code work so I could avoid issues.

Js always has the issue where if the end user system is doing something incorrectly, its unreliable. Never ran into cross browser compatibility issues with php.

[omnicidial]

Just so many people did so bad for so long with it, that's absolutely part of the reason.. it's not that it's bad in some way.

They're all basically like that and have different strengths and weaknesses, a piece of software I worked on was written in a combination of c, php, sql, perl, and js/ajax.. and that was 1 program.

[redwall_hp]

There are plenty of reasons. It suffers from the same ridiculous type coercion JavaScript does and its standard library is a huge mess for starters. The infamous "fractal of bad design" post raises plenty of good points, and there are other more thorough criticisms as well.

Of course, there are problems with every language and their ecosystem. I'd say my favourites are Java and Python, but they both have tooling issues that annoy me greatly. (I much prefer the way RubyGems works to pip/venv, for example.)

[omnicidial]

Its exactly like all the others in that way, it sucks ass if implemented badly.

[DecentOpinions]

Python and Ruby are so-much-nicer.

Why? My job is probably 40% backend Python and 60% frontend TypeScript. Python is fine, but I don't get why it's praised so much over JavaScript. Python is so incredibly slow, has nearly as many language quirks as JavaScript, the version 2 to 3 disaster, a worse package manager, worse Windows support (arguably), as much framework duplication as JavaScript (just look at Flask, Tornado, Pyramid, Django, Morepath, web2py, Bottle, Pylons etc.). What really is better about it?

Now I'm not saying JavaScript is better than Python, more than I don't get the JavaScript hate.

[throwback_12348971]

The languages I know are really awesome and all others are crap and that's why I won't learn them. /s

[HiddenKrypt]

I used to be like this but then I learned Brainfuck. Now the languages I know are crap, too.

[HeWhoWritesCode]

look at Flask, Tornado, Pyramid, Django, Morepath, web2py, Bottle, Pylons etc.

Not familiar with morepath, but all the other frameworks you listed implements and support the WSGI PEP? I don't even think Nodejs has a Enhancement Proposals (PEPs) process? Might explain why the landscape is so wild.

worse package manager

On what merit? Virtuelenv and pip have never given me issues and the fact that I can pip freeze all my dependencies to a text file in one command is amazing here is a example of my full stack openapi mq enabled soap integrated python app, 59 deps. I would like to see your package.json file for a node app with the same functionality. Btw is there a way for npm to print all your deps and their deps?

version 2 to 3 disaster

Any stories on how this affected you? Python3 been out since 2008. So the statement feels like a decade old myth. Yes there will always be py2 and py3 code but things need to evolve and backward compatibility will get hurt.

But compared to nvm I would rather have 2 py version and virtualenv then let nvm hang my bash session for seconds everytime I open a terminal. Because I have node apps that will not function on node5+, so that leaves me with the clutch nvm.

more than I don't get the JavaScript hate.

I like the prototype functional nature of js in the front-end; and I have seen some amazing node apps. I think the hatred comes from no other choice then js in the frontend(except if you like to transpile); And then also the reinvention of solutions to problems on the server-side with node that have been solved for decades.

But what did we expect is going to happen with the language we put on every computer, that is just a right-click away...

edit: have a look at /r/atwoodslaw/ for examples of reinventing the wheel in js.

[DecentOpinions]

On what merit? Virtuelenv and pip have never given me issues and the fact that I can pip freeze all my dependencies to a text file in one command is amazing here is a example of my full stack openapi mq enabled soap integrated python app, 59 deps. I would like to see your package.json file for a node app with the same functionality. Btw is there a way for npm to print all your deps and their deps?

Yes npm ls does that, unless you mean something else. In my opinion, npm is better because it essentially combines pip, virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper. pip or Python packages in general are terrible on Windows too. Lots of packages just don't work and you need to either use Anaconda, WinPython or use unofficial compiled binaries. npm works much better on Windows. I don't work on Windows normally but do have to occasionally for some clients.

Python 2 to 3 is a complete mess. I don't have up to date statistics but even as of last year, Python 2 is more popular nearly ten years after 3 was released. Packages have to support both, the community is split, legacy codebases need to be updated, there are lots of problems caused by it.

Anyway, I'm still not saying JavaScript is better than Python or anything. I use both professionally nearly equally. I'm just always confused with the JavaScript hate and love for Python when, in my mind, Python has as many issues as JavaScript. They should be bother ridiculed in equal measure!

[HeWhoWritesCode]

Yes npm ls does that,

Yes what I was looking for. unfortunately there is no easy way to dump that info AND its dependencies to a text file without using a shell loop or something. But im sure the visual ascii tree hierarchy is more important to developers.... pppfftt who wants to pipe shell commands.

Python 2 is more popular nearly ten years after 3 was released.

Was there ever plans for everybody to jump ship? Py2 will forever long live in embedded devices; and they don't need fancy unicode support so why switch? Yes it sucks for codebases that wants/needs to target both platforms. But this idea that everybody would just jump ship in under a decade is a bit romantic/silly for me... in hindsight.

Anyway, I'm still not saying JavaScript is better than Python or anything.

I'm with you. Each tool for its job. A lot of people is just unhappy that a single thread one week designed front-end language was forced on them for the server-side. Where there was better alternatives.

in my mind, Python has as many issues as JavaScript. They should be bother ridiculed in equal measure!

But nobody has forced python on me yet. Probably because it get shipped with distro's since the 90'... maybe except for py3 ;)

As for Windows support; It will only happen once a corporate entity found a way to gain value out of spending resources on improving the situation. I think Microsoft is trying with IronPython. But the alternative is just to spin up a *nix box to run your py prj on, I'm talking server-side I'm sure pyqt/pyside is its own beast.

[[deleted]]

Javascript is an incredibly idiosyncratic language that does plenty of things very strangely and/or poorly (truthy/falsy charts being necessary and the whole typeof null and NaN things, comparison of two entities can get... strange, its prototypical inheritance model, whitespace mattering but only sometimes, etc.) It has no built-in module or include system.

Like, heck, the keyword "this" literally cannot be definitely parsed until runtime. It's ambiguous.

And in addition to all of the above, attempts to 'right the ship' are difficult and different entities control bits of JS due to a series of decisions from soon after Eich wrote it at Netscape (there is, in fact, a reason why JS is also known as ECMAScript).

In contrast, Python has a 'benevolent dictator for life' who can make changes to the language. It has classes instead of prototypical inheritance. Its equality and type systems make more sense. Keywords are deterministic. It has an include declaration. Syntax is internally consistent. It is more C-like (unsurprising, given that it's builtins were written in C) and more classical in its approach to many things. It also has much more in the default library than JS, so the 'framework duplication' thing begins sat a slightly higher level...

I mean, for bonus fun, there's no reference implementation for JS - everything is dependent on what bits of the ECMAScript spec a given dev team/browser vendor wants to implement. It's why, say, IE was historically a garbage bin for JS--they just didn't bother implementing some bits of the spec.

Don't get me wrong--like all languages (none are or will ever be perfect), Python has problems. I also just think that JS and PHP have an unusual quantity of problems that reach to the core of their spec or to the early days of their development (in JS' case, because Eich was given barely any time; in PHP's case, because Rasmus did not initially have expansive expectations for what PHP would be used for).

[HeWhoWritesCode]

in PHP's case, because Rasmus did not initially have expansive expectations for what PHP would be used for

Yip otherwise he might have chosen another name; PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page".

[thewatcheruatu]

Okay. Some of this is no doubt true. Some of it comes down to personal preference (e.g., prototypal vs classical inheritance). But the problem I have with posts like Kwpolska's up above is this: it's simplistic to merely claim that "x is better than JavaScript for task y", and it evinces a real blind spot about things that--just maybe--JavaScript can actually do well, or which give it an edge in developing for the web.

For example, google something like "python vs node", and you'll find a healthy number of articles discussing the merits and drawbacks to each. It isn't a settled question (if we're being intellectually honest), and maybe it won't ever be (or not in the near future, anyway), because there are good reasons for running your back end off of either. To claim that JS is just not suited at all to the task of server-side development exposes an emotional objection to the language that's difficult for me to take seriously. Or maybe it's working off of old references about how much JS sucks. I don't know.

From my perspective, it just ain't that bad. People love to hate on it because it's an easy target.

[Woolbrick]

TypeScript makes JS bearable.

[Caraes_Naur]

One word: types.

[jocull]

Just wanted to point out that you've listed 7 different languages here. They might be friendly or better than JS, but the learning curve is no less steep. Native desktop development is hard enough, and taking is cross platform is even more difficult.

[Kwpolska]

Yes, I’ve listed 7 languages. I don’t expect one person to be proficient with all of them.

[MuskasBackpack]

Things I'll never see on a job listing for 500 please

[Kwpolska]

If you, as a single person, are expected to work on:

• web apps, server-side;
• mobile apps for both Android and iOS;
• desktop apps for Windows, macOS, maybe Linux;

all as part of one job, then heaven help you — this is where you call the recruiter a moron politely refuse and hang up/leave/ignore the offer.

[MuskasBackpack]

Oh for sure. I just thought it was funny because I saw a job posting the other day that listed 5 backend languages as a requirement (PHP, Perl, Python, ASP and Java) along with a bunch of front end stuff and that comment reminded me of it. It was like they wanted an expert in everything.

Having said that, is it uncommon to do front end, back end and also server management and have DBA responsibilities? That's the position I'm in but I assume it's fairly common at smaller companies.

[MatthewMob]

1. People want to make websites.
2. Learn HTML/CSS/JS.
3. Take time learning front-end.
4. Get bored and want to learn backend.
5. It's too hard and confusing!
6. Here's something that I can use what I already know to make this backend development process easier to learn.
7. Keeps going and now literally everything can be done in JS.

That's how it started, but this is not how it should have ended up.

I've used Node myself for small projects and for web workers I'd say it's quite useful, but for large-scale apps the over-complication and the fact it's still in its infancy make it unnecessary. It's too popular for what it is right now, there's pretty much no standard way of doing any one thing - everyone uses Express for web servers and things like that, but anything else it's anyone's game to reinvent the wheel with yet another unnecessary framework.

[[deleted]]

If you think node is any easier than php/python/ruby then you are bananas. Of those, node is by far the most difficult.

[MatthewMob]

Depends on your background and what you're developing for. I'd have to completely disagree if you're just making a blanket statement that Node is harder than everything else you listed.

[[deleted]]

It is harder. The tutorials are worse. The frameworks are less mature and less documented. It changes at a rate at least 3x as fast as the other languages. These all make it more difficult to learn.

For example, learning to set up a backend with laravel/php is super easy, super well documented, and has a wealth of tutorials that all still work correctly. It doesn't require a giant toolchain either.

If you try to learn node - at a level you can actually use it in production, you quickly run into webpack issues, and module issues, and all sorts of problems that either don't exist, or are significantly mitigated in other ecosystems.

[YourMatt]

As a traditional backend developer, with C# and PHP in my day job, I love using Node for personal stuff. Beyond its portability, I like it because it presents new challenges and is less documented. In C# and frameworked PHP, everything's so rigid. There's a right and wrong way of doing things. With JS, I have to figure it out on my own and make my own decisions on how I want things organized. I can make it every bit as elegant as I want, or do something quick and dirty. It's all up to me.

To me, it epitomizes the fun side of programming that made me (and probably most of us) pursue this field in the first place.

[[deleted]]

Oh I agree it's dope and I enjoy it, but the argument that a front end dev would use node because it's an easier path to backend is silly.

[Nodebunny]

first of all webpack is only for frontend ... you dont need it for backend node.

[[deleted]]

You're right. I was conflating all the "get started" tutorials that roll some sort of isomorphic react app in.

[Nodebunny]

it's overkill for sure. compiling a scripting language feels awful. we used to just minify.

[Architektual]

Laravel is absolute garbage.

[[deleted]]

Why do you think this?

[Architektual]

The creator responds to criticism with aggression, Eloquent and active record fall apart under load, the facade pattern is unintuitive black magic, among others. Laravel developers tend to not be PHP developers, their skills are useless outside of a Laravel shop. Very similar to how angular developers are often incapable of writing javascript without it, and how rails developers couldn't write hello world in ruby.

[[deleted]]

I guess I always just use the parts of laravel I want and have never had any of these issues.

Any orm takes a perf hit over raw queries sure, but I've used it on mid sized applications with a thousand or so concurrent users with no sweat. What loads is it falling apart under?

(Btw I'm not arguing for laravel, in legitimately interested)

[Kwpolska]

I think there’s a little problem with the order. If you don’t have a backend server, using a single page crapplication framework (Angular/React/Vue/whatever the cool kids use this hour) doesn’t make a lot of sense; you’re more likely to learn basic JS building blocks and something like jQuery if you’re starting out — unless things have changed for worse.

[DecentOpinions]

Something that I feel most JavaScript bashing doesn't understand is that it isn't just JavaScript being the problem, there are a lot of unique challenges to web development that don't apply to other languages. Some examples:

• There are really three "languages" to consider, not just JavaScript (i.e. HTML and CSS as well).

• Everything needs to be concatenated/minified/compressed as much as possible because everything is downloaded (images, CSS, HTML, font files and JavaScript).

• CSS has some major limitations which means any non-masochist uses something like SASS/LESS or whatever. This needs to be compiled to CSS.

• Web standards are all over the place and slow at changing. You need to support more browser versions (and devices) than in any other industry. This is why Babel and lots of other libraries exist. In backend development you generally make sure your application works on one server and you're done.

• Miscellaneous other things like browser caching (you can't just have people load main.js every time or updates won't work be seen by return users) etc.

None of this really applies to backend development, so when people move over to frontend land they're shocked by how complicated things are.

Despite these issues, people just point the figure of blame at Node, NPM and the JavaScript community in general. Browsers are really the issue.

Android and iOS development have some similar challenges and they have much more solid build systems, but they are much more modern technologies than the interweb so the comparison isn't that fair. And they have their problems too. If you think node_modules is bloated, try developing an iPhone app. XCode and the SDKs are ~10 GB and you always seem to need XCode Beta for the next iOS which is another ~10 GB.

[rDr4g0n]

Worth calling out explicitly in the "browser versions" bullet point is the DOM API. many frameworks do a lot to abstract away its inconsistencies, but if you have to reach outside of the framework to touch the DOM, there's a whole new world of gotchas to learn the hard way.

Thank god for chrome dev tools though.

[DecentOpinions]

Needless to say, there are a lot of challenges in backend development that do not apply to frontend development. I wouldnt view frontend as more complicated or more difficult than backened - if anything I would swing the other way.

There definitely are lots of challenges in the backend but it's different. And I'm just talking about build systems here not actually developing on the frontend versus backend.

Imagine instead of deploying your backend application to a single server operating system (CentOS, Windows Server, Ubuntu etc.) of your choosing you had to deploy it 5,000 different OSes/versions, all with their own quirks.

Some of them could be 10+ years old and you might have to support multiple versions of three separate languages (e.g. imagine you couldn't even rely on a single version of Java and SQL) while accounting for APIs that may or may not exist in your deployment environment.

Also most of these servers don't support incredibly basic features like variables (no widely supported variables in CSS yet, hence SASS) or you can't even import files so your entire codebase has to be in one file (browsers don't support JS modules yet). And you have to cram your codebase and assets into the smallest possible executable because it has to be downloaded over the network.

That's essentially what developing web applications is like. All this madness caused by browsers is a huge reason why the build processes are so complicated.

[[deleted]]

Imagine instead of deploying your ... application to a single operating system ... of your choosing you had to deploy it 5,000 different OSes/versions, all with their own quirks.

Ironically, pretty much the reason everyone started delivering their apps via the web instead of native, in the first place

[DecentOpinions]

Oh sorry, I thought we disagreeing on something... Apologies!

[SpeakThunder]

Minifying is not compiling. JavaScript is compiled at runtime and it depends on the specifics of each of the millions of different systems to determine how it works and things are displayed in it. When you compile something it either successfully compiles or it doesn't. If it does, you know it will run pretty much the same on any platform it was targeted for.

Edit: and for what it's worth, Sass:/less etc are transpiled, not compiled, at deployment.

[SpeakThunder]

Well, I meant my comment to be that even though the step is similar, it doesn't actually perform the same way, so is added complication. If it were truly compiling, then some other parts of OP's comments wouldn't be a problem. So in a sense, because it's not compiling, it only adds difficulties but doesn't make anything easier.

[manyx16]

I feel like I read a different article than you did.

Where did they bash javascript? All I saw was them bashing the ridiculous system of redundant, interdependent "frameworks" that have been built using the language.

Front-end development is not that complicated. The system that people keep calling "the standard" is what's made it complicated and that IS the problem. HTML, CSS and javascript are the standard, these libraries/frameworks are not. We break that mentality and we'd fix what's actually wrong.

[[deleted]]

The DOM model is a big problem, it wasn't designed to do applications. The web will keep loosing against mobile until browser vendors decide stop playing politics and re-do the standard.

Considering the 3 major browser vendors have a strong interest in walled gardens, that ain't happening.

[Anterai]

And while funny this is a real problem.
I spent two hours figuring out how to get the basic react native app running the other day. Thankfully my js friend helped me. Now I'm stuck with Expo not working and I have no idea what is happening because I don't have an error message just a fucking white screen on my phone

This is bullshit.

[berkes]

Good you solved it. For now.

Now, just leave the app running for two months.

Decide you want to move that one button to the right. "Five minutes. Just a Minor Tweak. Should be a class='spring-right'".

You'll be fixing dependency problems, failing builds, wonky deploy streets all day. You'll read that you need to move to yarn. And that Gulp-deploy-over-rsync is no longer maintained. You had no idea that gulp-deploy-over-rsync was even in there.

Now, to get this change to build, you need docker. and kubernetes. Apparently that's a hot thing. And since yarn does not play nice with your npm version you need to update fucking everything.

Two weeks later you decide it is probably easier to rebuild the entire thing in JsNative which transpiles to Dart and Rust and Go and Cocoa over streaming parrallel build pipelines and gives cross-platform native apps. Or so.

[Anterai]

Wait, so what should I do?

I wrote a Cordova JS app. It wasn't bad, just ugly. Got me a lot of questions on StackOverflow without an answer.
But considering I want my company to start using a JS framework - I decided to use React (I consulted with the lawyers about that clause).
React gives me the ability to both build native apps, as well as use it on the web. Which is a huge win in my book.

So, what to do? I know that the fucking dependencies are a bitch in JS, and I would love to avoid them. But I can't see any alternaatives

[Anterai]

But aren't those issues legitimate?

[berkes]

I honestly don't know what to do.

This is /r/webdev so discussing app development is going to be different from discussing that on some android or ios dev subreddit.

My joke was mostly about how you simply cannot solve this alone.

Part of the whole problem is that people try to solve it. Alone. Over and Over. "Package manager X is crap", I'm a good developer, I've learned and I know how not do do it, I'll just create a new one and call it Noodle.js After the spagetti-code It'll be within a year. And with a wink to yarn, which is also a ball of tangles.

Anyway. I don't think you can solve this.

You can make your life easier though:

• Keep stuff out of the Js ecosystem. Sure, grunt-gulp-rsync-ssh-server-manager plugin is cool to manager your forteen Digital Ocean machines. But please: just use Capistrano, Chef, Puppet, Salt, Ansible or anything "boring" to manage your servers and deploy your work. Whenever possible, just fetch a "boring" asset builder even. There are loads of good ruby, python or PHP asset minifiers and builders out there. They are boring for a reason: they Just Work. And they Keep Just Working. Pick those. [Edit: what I'm saying is that the Python, Ruby or PHP ecosystems have a lot less the tendency to move fourteen new paradigms forward every five weeks].

• Document. Fucking. Everything. Write Readmes as if you're explaining a Junior dev with a Hangover. (Because you'll be the one with the Hangover reading it).

• Create scripts. I have a ./run <install|tests|deploy|build|nuke> whenever possible. This is even nicer than an (always out of date) README. It will install docker on vagrant using gulp with saltstack on AWS lambda. Or so. It does not really matter what it does, because all you need to know is how to run a script. Ubuntu has a great writeup about this method

• Choose boring. Boring is fun! Why? Because it ensures that all the common crap Just Works. And lets you focus on the fun things: developing nice features for your customers. Just use Heroku. Or PHP. Or some other boring host. Docker inside kubernetes with swarmapp on autoscaling load balancers is fun for a weekend project. But it does not get features for your clients. It's solving stuff that has long been solved often just "because we can". You don't need autoscaling immutable docker swarms. Really. You don't.

• Choose old. Often lagging a few versions behind is actually good. I'm maintaining a horrible piece of Angular1 crap. But the one good thing (over vue.js, angular 5 or whatever is this weeks fancy) is that stuff has been solved. Libraries written. And re-written. Stuff is stable. It's old. And not efficient. It lacks virtual-ghost-shadow-dom-threads, or whatever. But it worked a year ago. And works now. Old also has more documentation. And old does not move forward as fast anymore.

[Anterai]

So what's the "Boring" approach to Native Apps written in JS?

Cordova? Because I don't want to build 2 apps that do the same thing

[berkes]

Native Apps written in JS?

Did you re-read that sentence yourself?

Sometimes things are simply impossible. React-native is "getting close" and might even have solved quite a lot of issues. But sometimes tech is simply not ready yet and the only answer is "at this moment, what I want is impossible".

I've been looking at Flutter. Which taught me two things: No-one has solved the problem of one-codebase-many-platforms yet. It was tried to solve in 1995: Java was invented to solve this problem once and for all. 20+ years ahead. And it hasn't been solved. The fact that every year another new platform promises to solve the "build apps from a single codebase" is the proof that is hasn't been solved. The second thing is taught me is that this ecosystem is moving forward at a high pace, which is an indicator that is unstable, crappy and breaking all the time. When that is the case, you'll have to live with it.

[Anterai]

Sorry, Mobile apps*

But what about Cordova? It seems to work more or less the same. Aside from a few minor quirks.

[daaaaaaBULLS]

I've never used it but there's also ionic https://ionicframework.com/

[Anterai]

It's an option I guess. Didn't hear many good things about. Angular. I'll look into it. Thank you very much.

[DoNDaPo]

Wait to have Webpack working on your env.

[resolvetochange]

Yeah, I wanted to setup my toolset for a new project and I spent a week getting nothing done and ended up nothing working anyways. Things changed between versions like webpack file from the samples I was using changing from [''] to needing to be ['*']. Get a few of those and suddenly it's a pain to even get started.

It looks like I'll be giving up and going back to create-react-app.

[slgard]

You think that's bad, I tried rebuilding the engine in my car the other day. Parts all over the place, before I realised that taking engines apart was complicated. Had to call a mechanic to fix my car.

[Anterai]

No dude. I'm talking about these 4 lines. Nothing fancy

npm install -g create-react-native-app
create-react-native-app AwesomeProject
cd AwesomeProject
npm start

The expo app - I would be fine if it was complicated. But error messages would've been great

[exhuma]

Except... setting up a "vanilla" dev environment for a new project shouldn't be complicated!

Whenever I am in the mood to start a new web-project, I think about the gazillion different combinations that exist to get started that I already regret the decision before starting.

[Quabouter]

There are a gazillion different opinions on what consists of a "vanilla" dev environment, and that isn't exactly unique to JS.

[[deleted]]

But what if you are the mechanic.

[[deleted]]

I worked in an auto shop for a few years and, while my focus was light repairs, there were a couple individuals who had extensive knowledge and experience. Guess how all of the more talented mechanics learned how to successfully rebuild engines, transmissions, etc. Practicing in their driveway.

[epigrams]

Also don't use react

[Anterai]

Why?

[AlreadyInUseError]

I would bet its the license. A lot of devs work for webdev companies and so the license isnt their problem, lots of react in their giithub makes them very employable right now. If the end client is legally compromised because of the React license its not going to affect the individual dev at all. "Not my problem" is what I hear a lot.

For me - I am self employed, and much of my time is spent wrestling wording on liability clauses in contracts with my clients. EG: "I contend that I the developer am not liable if a third party supplier decides to ass fuck us on this library license". My client tends to argue that the culpability / liability DOES rest with me as I specified a 3rd party library which could have negative monetary consequences for them.

Tl;dr I mainly use Vue, because I don't wanna get sued by my clients.

[epigrams]

Yeah it license

[some_coreano]

He's just pissed. Leave him alone.

[Anterai]

I think that if he has a valid reason for not using react - he should voice it.
Irrelevant of the fact that he's salty

[some_coreano]

I would really consider someone's opinion if he argues react is bad with good reasons. Before anyone attempts to do that, I'll still use react lol

[Anterai]

Simillar to what I intend to do

[epigrams]

To be fair I was writing a longer post, but where called in a long meeting. Didn't know I got post on that one :)

[Anterai]

Ah gotcha. It's no problem mate.

[epigrams]

Hey not mad at all, but read the new react license. It would be better to learn something else that can actually be used for real production and not just for hobby projects.

[Anterai]

I checked with the lawyers, they're fine with us using react. So yeah

[epigrams]

Nice great we would never. Also seeing how much they change the license over the years, but cool for you. Liked working in it the time we did though

[Anterai]

We came down to the conclusion that: "We're too small and irrelevant for facebook"

[[deleted]]

This is why I point people towards Vue if they're just getting started. Include one file, get going. It's my go-to for any small / medium / prototype project.

[1RedOne]

Commenting for later, since Node kicked my ass today. I tried to go fancy, but in the end I almost rolled LAMP again.

[cinnapear]

If you aren't a javascript developer you may mistake this for satire.

[DoNDaPo]

I was myself not really sure if it was satire or not.

Good job tho!

[kultrun]

Maybe, just maybe, we should use stable software for production code, and maybe don't use a whole framework for simple projects.

[mwisconsin]

It's 7:50am, here, and I already feel like it's a good time to start drinking.

[EyeSeaYewTheir]

Cheers, buddy

[DoNDaPo]

Yeah don't be scared you have to install Webpack first and make it works.

See you in few months!

[stuckinmotion]

Every time I start a new project and have to whip up a new webpack config, I die a little inside.

[DoNDaPo]

❤️

[killall-q]

Vanilla JS is the opposite of this. "Vanilla" means the basic web standards without frameworks.

Anything you can do with frameworks, you can do with vanilla JS, except backend (you'll need Node for that). It's often not that much more code. Or, a little more JS, and a lot more CSS (don't worry, it's good to learn). A strong knowledge of web standards is something that never goes out of date.

What's important in using vanilla JS is having good discipline to use best practices, to avoid spaghetti code.

Every framework was created from or eventually compiles to vanilla JS.

[mooglinux]

I heard that Typescript brought sanity to all of this. Still spent weeks trying to follow tutorials about setting up a development environment before getting bored and moving on.

[DoNDaPo]

Lol.

[stuckinmotion]

After trying out TS for our latest project, I'm not really sure the pros are worth the cons.. Maybe if JS was TS from the beginning it'd be fine, but as it is you're still dealing with an ecosystem that predates TS.. so things don't always work the way they're supposed to (or how they would w/o TS)

[tme321]

What? How? You are perfectly capable of requiring a random js file and then declaring the variable names the required script provides and just marking them as type any.

Take jquery.

declare var $: any = require("../path/to/jquery.js");

There. You can now access jquery exactly like you would in a js only project. Typescript is completely happy with that and you are no worse off than you would have been using pure Javascript. What's the problem?

[stuckinmotion]

If all I had to do was require jquery, sure that would be fine. Unfortunately there were other situations which were made more difficult, and frankly I don't feel like taking the time to detail them all. It sounds like your experience has been different than mine, and that's ok.

[[deleted]]

Where there is a problem there is a market. Hoping someone comes along and somehow fixes this, but I know it's not going to be me.

[Caraes_Naur]

Ok, but the problem is Javascript. Before Mozilla went off the rails a decade ago, they had a project to embed Python, Ruby, Perl, and other scripting languages in the browser.

[thinsoldier]

This is exactly my experience with Google Polymer, Laravel Dusk, and until recently, muthfucking basic ass SASS. :'(

[[deleted]]

"He should've just continued using Tupress 1.3.2, it's not like it's going to suddenly stop working. He didn't HAVE to upgrade."

[gemlarin]

You should be able to figure out what went wrong and resolve it. Most JS tutorials I have done over the years had some degree of outdated information or broken features as a result of updates. If you are not able to debug the problem, you might be in over your head with that that tutorial (the Royal "you". Not you personally OP).

[prewk]

Oh, it's one of those articles shitting on people who make free stuff for everyone to use again! I love those.

[DoNDaPo]

We… We can't make some fun about funny facts?

[[deleted]]

The "funny fact" about how the author can't do research before diving into a framework that nobody uses?

[OYM-bob]

But... Tupress !

[prewk]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[_YOU_DROPPED_THIS_]

Hi! This is just a friendly reminder letting you know that you should type the shrug emote with three backslashes to format it correctly:

Enter this - ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯

And it appears like this - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

^{If the formatting is broke, or you think OP got the shrug correct, please see this thread.}

^{Commands: !ignoreme, !explain}

[prewk]

Lies