I agree. On the other hand, if everyone is sitting on the fence until a thing is mainstream, who exactly has the power to make anything mainstream? Are we waiting for the entry-level programmers of the world to pick the next thing because it is the easiest to use without knowing much? Are we waiting for facebook or google to tell us it's okay?
To me, this is part of the conundrum of being a modern dev (and especially, a modern JavaScript dev). The beauty is that the language (and the massive universe of associated packages) is evolving at a breakneck pace. The downside to that evolution is that you can burn a lot of valuable time and effort trying to build something in a soon-to-be-dead fork of the evolution, merely because you placed your bet on the wrong technology.
I don't have a "proper" answer for this. But I was intrigued recently by a comment that I read from Ben Halpern on this platform:
"Inelegant software which has a huge following and a big ecosystem is often better than objectively cleaner, better software."
I wanna hate him for stating this (plainly obvious fact). On many levels, he's absolutely right. But it still sucks when you're convinced that you've found some package/solution/language/whatever that you swear is superior - but it just never gains a following.
I keep agreeing with you. My question is: what is our (senior devs who have been around for awhile and could contribute code to any one of these frameworks) role in making something that we think is better mainstream?
A different way to phrase it: how does this process of evolution select for the winning frameworks and tools?
Some of this comes down to deeply personal choices about where/how you work and what's important to you as a dev. I'll freely admit that, for much of my professional life, I've been working for whomever could drop the most coin into my bank account. There's nothing wrong with that. But it does tend to leave you working for larger corporations. Big corporations so rarely spawn "green fields" work - it's all tied to big legacy projects. And those legacy codebases are rarely ever rewritten (nor should they be). So it's highly impractical to suggest switching-to/introducing any new tool/library/technology.
I really think that being on the "evolutionary edge" of technology requires a bit of a conscious choice on the part of the dev. So many (well-paying) jobs amount to "Add a new feature/module to this Big Hairy Legacy Codebase". So if you want to be in a place where you can actually have a role in making something mainstream, you'd have to consciously filter for that while you're making a job choice. Of course, many devs - even some very experienced and talented devs - don't feel like they can afford to weed out Big Corporate X that wants to throw money at them to crank out new Visual Basic modules...
I see your point. My thinking is: even if I could make my team to select technology X, I don't think it will make that much impact. No one outside of my immediate vicinity gives a $#!t about what I think and probably they shouldn't. I didn't earn it.
I just wonder, if it is not people like us that make these things popular who is it then?
It is also indirectly related to another comment I wrote about dev culture:
Ah, I didn't know js files aren't compiled. I thought it processes them so that it can do its treeshaking magic and all.
On the one hand your points make a lot of sense to me and I can relate. On the other hand I wonder whether we (devs) became too spoiled for our own good. We seem to prioritise DX over UX and expect to be hand held (by our free tools and the communities that back them) every step of the way
You can't really have "much impact" on the broader adoption of any given technology. For the most part, that's a good thing, because our individual tech obsessions are never quite as clear-cut and obvious as we'd like to think.
You can rarely do much to individually shape opinion, because programming is the tactical expression of a vast marketplace of ideas. Once any marketplace gets large enough, it's nearly impossible for any one person to really drive the market.
It'd be like if you woke up this morning with a revelation that Microsoft will be the hottest, most profitable stock for the next 10 years. You can throw all of your money into the stock. And if your intuition is correct, you'll eventually make a lot of money. But your bulk purchase of MS stock will have only an infinitesimal effect on the price. You can praise the stock to all your friends, but again, that's not gonna have any material impact on the stock, good-or-bad. In the end, "the market" as a whole will drive the long-term direction of the stock.
The only possible exception to this in tech is if you can (or even want to) find a way to become one of the tech's "thought leaders". If Dan Abramov wakes up tomorrow morning and decides that React is a stooopid name, and we should all be calling it "ButtJS" (pronounced "butt-joos"), then by golly, that's what most React fanboys are gonna start calling it. They'll even write deep think pieces about why ButtJS is such a better name. And they'll cover you in snark and scorn if you still insist on calling it "React".
I agree. On the other hand, if everyone is sitting on the fence until a thing is mainstream, who exactly has the power to make anything mainstream? Are we waiting for the entry-level programmers of the world to pick the next thing because it is the easiest to use without knowing much? Are we waiting for facebook or google to tell us it's okay?
To me, this is part of the conundrum of being a modern dev (and especially, a modern JavaScript dev). The beauty is that the language (and the massive universe of associated packages) is evolving at a breakneck pace. The downside to that evolution is that you can burn a lot of valuable time and effort trying to build something in a soon-to-be-dead fork of the evolution, merely because you placed your bet on the wrong technology.
I don't have a "proper" answer for this. But I was intrigued recently by a comment that I read from Ben Halpern on this platform:
"Inelegant software which has a huge following and a big ecosystem is often better than objectively cleaner, better software."
I wanna hate him for stating this (plainly obvious fact). On many levels, he's absolutely right. But it still sucks when you're convinced that you've found some package/solution/language/whatever that you swear is superior - but it just never gains a following.
I keep agreeing with you. My question is: what is our (senior devs who have been around for awhile and could contribute code to any one of these frameworks) role in making something that we think is better mainstream?
A different way to phrase it: how does this process of evolution select for the winning frameworks and tools?
Some of this comes down to deeply personal choices about where/how you work and what's important to you as a dev. I'll freely admit that, for much of my professional life, I've been working for whomever could drop the most coin into my bank account. There's nothing wrong with that. But it does tend to leave you working for larger corporations. Big corporations so rarely spawn "green fields" work - it's all tied to big legacy projects. And those legacy codebases are rarely ever rewritten (nor should they be). So it's highly impractical to suggest switching-to/introducing any new tool/library/technology.
I really think that being on the "evolutionary edge" of technology requires a bit of a conscious choice on the part of the dev. So many (well-paying) jobs amount to "Add a new feature/module to this Big Hairy Legacy Codebase". So if you want to be in a place where you can actually have a role in making something mainstream, you'd have to consciously filter for that while you're making a job choice. Of course, many devs - even some very experienced and talented devs - don't feel like they can afford to weed out Big Corporate X that wants to throw money at them to crank out new Visual Basic modules...
I see your point. My thinking is: even if I could make my team to select technology X, I don't think it will make that much impact. No one outside of my immediate vicinity gives a $#!t about what I think and probably they shouldn't. I didn't earn it.
I just wonder, if it is not people like us that make these things popular who is it then?
It is also indirectly related to another comment I wrote about dev culture:
Ah, I didn't know js files aren't compiled. I thought it processes them so that it can do its treeshaking magic and all.
On the one hand your points make a lot of sense to me and I can relate. On the other hand I wonder whether we (devs) became too spoiled for our own good. We seem to prioritise DX over UX and expect to be hand held (by our free tools and the communities that back them) every step of the way
You can't really have "much impact" on the broader adoption of any given technology. For the most part, that's a good thing, because our individual tech obsessions are never quite as clear-cut and obvious as we'd like to think.
You can rarely do much to individually shape opinion, because programming is the tactical expression of a vast marketplace of ideas. Once any marketplace gets large enough, it's nearly impossible for any one person to really drive the market.
It'd be like if you woke up this morning with a revelation that Microsoft will be the hottest, most profitable stock for the next 10 years. You can throw all of your money into the stock. And if your intuition is correct, you'll eventually make a lot of money. But your bulk purchase of MS stock will have only an infinitesimal effect on the price. You can praise the stock to all your friends, but again, that's not gonna have any material impact on the stock, good-or-bad. In the end, "the market" as a whole will drive the long-term direction of the stock.
The only possible exception to this in tech is if you can (or even want to) find a way to become one of the tech's "thought leaders". If Dan Abramov wakes up tomorrow morning and decides that React is a stooopid name, and we should all be calling it "ButtJS" (pronounced "butt-joos"), then by golly, that's what most React fanboys are gonna start calling it. They'll even write deep think pieces about why ButtJS is such a better name. And they'll cover you in snark and scorn if you still insist on calling it "React".
😂 you killed me.
You are right.
I still feel there is some "missing link" here... but maybe this feeling is wrong.