2016-10-09

The JS toolback hell

This week I laughed a lot while reading How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016. That article had a pretty good response, like it hits a nerve.

But seriously it’s clear that we are at a transition time in Javascript evolution, and there is a huge chaos of possible alternatives to everything. It feels like an ecosystem where the natural selection didn’t operate its magic yet. It’s like there are things in suspension that are going to fall in order at some point eventually.

My personal bet is that things like elm will win the race, because with its embrace of functional programming it seems like it opens the door to interpretation with yet-to-be-written faster and more direct compilers (rather than transpiling to js). But that’s just a hunch.

In the while, front-end craft is now a wizard arcane art. It can’t be acquired by pure reasoning and logic, or reading a doc. You need the map of the landscape for knowing the possible choices and alternative intermediary solutions. For part-time front-end people, it’s just hell. For now.

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