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Discussion on: I'm having some "not this again" feelings with Parcel, how should I be feeling about this tool?

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Thomas Junkツ • Edited

And there is just a renaissace (or breakthrough) of brunch :D

How are you feeling about this tooling landscape

Javascript tooling is really evolving in a fast pace. Which is in itself a good thing. People are working on improvements everywhere. For many different problems there are a variety of solutions to pick from. So in terms of supply and demand, it is a nice market.

The only thing which in my eyes causes problems is the overoptimistic attitude of people, trying to learn the latest and greatest in order to feel their skillset staying sharp.

It's a bit like developers became some kind of fashion victim: »Oh, what you are still using $blerg when everybody else is using $blarg. This is so 2017«.

Another problem I see is big insecurty: Becuase of having (too) many choices people are afraid of making the wrong choices (which is not even limited to the javascript ecosystem).
»What framework should I use to accomplish X

My standard answer to this:
»Pick the one you are understanding fast and feel the most productive with«

Most of the time, projects or companies die before they feel any serious pain because of wrong technological choices. And if they survived up to that point, they have enough money to pay people making the right decisions for them.

My approach to this in general, or parcel in special is purely hedonistic:
If I find a minute, I have a look at it and play with it. If not, it's okay - I know, it's there; and when webpack at some point in the future should make me cry (again), I'll give it a try. If it's fun, I'll use it. If I am bored. I leave it.

OTOH, I've been long enough in the industry to have learned, that all tools/languages are in one way or the other "crap". And sometimes it is better to stay with "crap you know". There are less bad surprises waiting.