Can't wait for "The Pragmatic Front-End Developer" to pop-up in a few days.
Bottom line, we should focus on discussion that progresses our craft and not superficial rivalries. Take for example the excellent Pure UI by rauchg [1] (at the very least check the first footnote of the article, a true engineer in mind)
Granted, this is just a blog post, so the author isn't probably isn't actively trying to craft a faction amongst front end developers.
I feel I keep seeing an increasing number of blog posts that can be summarized as one of the following:
- Programming language X is dead/dumb/old/verbose, program in my own personal language Y.
- The [interpreter/compiler] for language Y is written in the source language, how "meta" is that?
- The library that will change the industry, and I just wrote it! <showcases a 5-10 line wrapper around a native language feature>
- I just invented this programming technique! <The technique has been in use since the early days of C>
Ultimately, I think it's the intention of those individuals to establish themselves in their selected niche -- and there's no problem with that, we all have to make a living. With social media and the associated disconnects, there seems to be a continuous drive to have one's voice/opinion be heard. In my own experience, I find the number of opinions floating around (either opposing or not) to simply increase the overall noise of the internet, especially those that assert their opinion on the reader. Consequently, this discourages me from sharing my own neutral insights on existing language features, technologies, or simply something new I learned.
On the note of establishing oneself, I believe the most effective method of doing so is the ability to showcase what one has accomplished, not just what one has said. Software development, companies, projects; the one purpose these three share in common is to solve the problems we're faced with. Whether that problem is solved with a game to satisfy one's boredom waiting at a bus stop, a usable ui design for booking flights, or writing a program that will take images of far off space bodies is beside the point -- the solutions we create will define our professional careers.
So yeah, I'm at least with you on finding this particular conversation useful and not at all wasteful drivel.
This reminds me of pg's "What you can't say" essay[2]. We may be able to identify areas we are wrong by evaluating the topics on which we are most unlikely to allow dissent.
If you want balance, you need to seek it out, both consciously asking people with measured responses what they mean and discounting people who hold extreme viewpoints.
It seems like very legitimate, high preforming, teams aren't really drawn to things like this. In some ways they're BFED and in some they're CFED.
If you want to stagnate and use the same tools, go for it. Other people will continue to push the envelope and improve the day to day lives of thousands of programmers everywhere.
If people were afraid to try new things, we wouldn't have things like Ember, or React, or Meteor, or Mythril, or Rails. You don't have to try every single thing that comes out, but at least be aware of them, and give them a cursory 30 minutes glance. You like programming, I assume? This should be fun, and it is!
Or washing machines. Or cars. Or penicillin.
The anti-innovation mindset that pervades in this industry just baffles me. Sure, don't rewrite the accounting system every time a new framework comes out, but don't knock those forging the future either. (I know you weren't, I'm adding to your reaction to the parent.)
I didn't mean it to read like that - I'm not against new frameworks, just developers who jump on them and think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread before they're really vetted and most of the bugs have been worked out.
Front-end code preprocessors, recent build systems and package managers, new-age frameworks (Angular), "Universal JS", and SPAs would all fit into this category.
Some tend to be skeptical, some are evangelists. There is a line in the sand, and while most developers don't fall clearly on either side, taken in aggregate, the line is visible.
I quite liked the BFED post. However, I submitted this because I think it makes persuasive counter-points.
Given the negative tone yesterday, I thought the crowd here might be more receptive to the more forward-thinking mindset. What's fascinating to me is that, even with nearly directly opposing viewpoints, the commentary on both HN discussion threads is actually quite critical.
The few times I try and use "hipster stuff", like yeoman generators, they don't really work out the box, and it feels like I could have spent that time manually getting things working, also a lot of complexity is added.
In a similar way, the churn rate of JS libs is just absolutely insane.
From - a boring backend developer.
