> and the immense amount of setup required to do even simple web apps.
This complexity is sold by people who are selling complex tools. I don't use Babel or Webpack because it is not necessary. I usually try to remain framework free or use a framework that has a minimal complexity cost. You can write a complex application with jQuery , Angular 1.0 or Vue.js or even React in ES5 and it will not require any complex asset pipeline + build tool + 50 plugins in order to get started.
As said earlier, in my opinion the only tools worth using are Typescript compiler and Bower for package management. I discarded everything else because I just don't want to spend my time in configuration files, it doesn't solve my issues or my client's issues. It's exactly like in the enterprise world in that aspect, where vendors try to sell businesses useless and complex solutions that will eventually get discarded when the insane cost becomes too apparent.
Exactly which tools are being sold ? All of the examples that you cite are free, which kind of provides evidence for my idea that the complexity is being caused by the proliferation of the tools/libraries due to them being free.
This complexity is sold by people who are selling complex tools. I don't use Babel or Webpack because it is not necessary. I usually try to remain framework free or use a framework that has a minimal complexity cost. You can write a complex application with jQuery , Angular 1.0 or Vue.js or even React in ES5 and it will not require any complex asset pipeline + build tool + 50 plugins in order to get started.
As said earlier, in my opinion the only tools worth using are Typescript compiler and Bower for package management. I discarded everything else because I just don't want to spend my time in configuration files, it doesn't solve my issues or my client's issues. It's exactly like in the enterprise world in that aspect, where vendors try to sell businesses useless and complex solutions that will eventually get discarded when the insane cost becomes too apparent.