Joe's Code Jottings

Inspired by this: https://youtu.be/ADKvP8Xn4g8, a video response to another "I'm not using react ever again" rant. "you" = the responder, "he" = the original anti-react ranter.

I think you missed one detail around claims 3 and 1 - a bit of a contradiction. On the one hand, he talks about how much the "elite" (your term) are constantly talking about some 'right way' to use react and he finds that annoying or worse.

But on the other hand in his point 3, he talks about the other framework as one where "there is a very clear idea how to use it."

So on the one hand he doesn't want to be told he's doing something wrong, but at the same time he wants assurances he's doing it right.

Those aren't as different as he seems to think.

Attitude is one thing, but he should realize he's responding to the attitude, NOT necessarily to the actual library itself (at least, as he's expressing it). He's imposing his emotional reaction to the spokespersons onto the library and coding experience, and deciding that the library is at fault for the emotional reaction. From there, it is easy to find technical 'flaws', because now he's intentionally looking for them where he hadn't felt the need to before. Attitude. There's reasons I don't make "top 10" lists - beyond a certain point you stop looking for what's great about a thing and then have to intentionally look for flaws you never felt you needed to know, just to find why this #2 and that is #1. #2 drops in value in your mind. These things happen, in every aspect of our lives, 'til you choose not to repeat that process and, as you are doing, just get on with it.

Now, how much of this comes from react's age, and its history of prior approaches that are no longer "a thing" (even though the library still supports them? As you say, when you get a new framework, experiment. break the "rules", talk about what you find. Many new ideas (incl hooks) came about from somebody breaking what was originally a rule (no state in functional components) and seeing where it led. Admittedly this can get 2 reactions - one side going "hey, that's interesting, lemme see where I can go", and then "nah, that's not really 'good coding practice'" - from there, it'll depend on how well they can answer why. Again, the problem is not the library, but the people.

And having good, energetic people is common at the beginning of a library's lifecycle, and rare later on. So the new always seems friendlier. But things will change. no framework has lasted forever with the same kind of energy. energy's and focus can shift - react is pushing server likely because most of their UI side has gotten tired (or dismissed in the layoffs) so the server side proponents are in charge and dominating the conversation. For all we know, their 'the right way or the highway' attitude may be the result of their own survival on the team through the layoffs still going on.

But every framework is going to go through that, eventually to get replaced, or to become just "the standard" with no energy behind it. Remember when jquery was all the rage? It's still here. No energy, a depressing thought when you find you have to use it if you're an up-and-coming dev, but there we are.