On: My Reaction to React

[FlyingSnake]

Thank you for writing this article.

I'm an iOS/Backend developer looking to do some lightweight front-end programming, and whenever I look at the JS landscape I shudder.

Nearly every suggestion from JS developers is on the line "Have you tried "React/Angular/Ember/ObscureJS?". The Grunt/Gulp/Yeoman/Bower/Npm/Batman.js etc toolchain makes me question my sanity. Is it so difficult to just use Plain Old JavaScript™ and be done with it?

Sorry for the rant, I wish novice JS developers like us had a better way to get initiated in the JS land.

[pluma → FlyingSnake]

Just pick one and be done with it. It's not JS that is holding you down, it's Analysis Paralysis. There are too many choices and you lack the knowledge to make an educated decision.

Pick one. Yes, you will pick the wrong one. That's okay. It will always turn out to be the wrong one eventually (if only because your requirements will change).

Don't obsess with what's hot. Figure out why it's hot, and what makes it different than the thing that was hot the previous week. If there's no sufficiently discernible difference you can probably afford not to pay attention to it until it pops up again.

The frontend ecosystem is in constant flux because the frontend platform is in constant flux. HTML has stopped using version numbers. JS itself has transitioned to yearly releases. CSS has fragmented into dozens of separately versioned specs.

That's just the way it is.

[peruvian → FlyingSnake]

Just pick one and get productive with it[1]. I recommend Ember, because it has strong conventions and just one tool (a CLI tool similar to Rails'). It uses a big toolchain underneath the hood but it's abstracted into one command.

[1] This is the important point. At the end of the day, no one cares what framework you use—whether your app works or not is what matters.