Greg and others,
One of Javascript’s strength is also it’s weakness. You can do literally anything with it. It is one of the most flexible and adaptable languages there is. This (IMHO) is one of the reasons it is popular. With that, many people twist and change it to what they think is best, and there are plenty of differing opinions, so here we are. As industry experts/veterans, it is always a challenge to look at the good parts of a framework/approach and: a) Accept the bad bits and use it b) Accept only the good bits and augment so that the bad bits are mitigated c) Watch and provide input to try and steer communities/frameworks/languages in the desired direction d) Do it all using the basic accepted tools currently available. This means things like just plain js/ jQuery/ES6(maybe using things like babel) etc. It is all in flux right now hence my call to wait it out for a bit (which libraries gain community momentum). To expect a strict guidance on how to do things in a particular framework for a large application is always going to be contentious in our field because of the “it depends” clause. There is no one way. The fact that you have had to research something quite a bit should at the very last have helped you form a much leaner and clearer picture of what you want, which can feed into the constant decision process as well as design. It is not easy but do not get too hung up on getting the perfect way via a particular tool (analysis paralysis). Pick the best possible that you think applies to you, weigh the risks and commit. The rest you can tailor to what you want. Final note: On a current project we are using Angular, however there are legacy elements still working fine but using prototype.js. Point being, at the end of the day, if you are just using plan old JS (whether via a particular library) it will continue to work for a long long time. - Glav From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Adrian Halid Sent: Monday, 24 August 2015 9:23 PM To: 'ozDotNet' <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Last words on AngularJS In the world according to Github Javascript is now the number 1 popular programming language used in their repositories. Might be due to all the Javascript frameworks out there:). It is also interesting to see the climb of Java from 7th to 2nd over the last 7 years. https://github.com/blog/2047-language-trends-on-github Regards Adrian Halid From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Greg Keogh Sent: Monday, 24 August 2015 6:26 PM To: ozDotNet <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Last words on AngularJS Paul, most of what you said actually supports my anguish over the "lottery" of kits, tools, packages and "standards" (ha!) and fads in the JavaScript ecosystem. Over the last week or more since I expressed my dismay, I've been reading more and more about the zoo of frameworks that decorate JavaScript and attempt to hoist it up into the world of "real languages". It's getting so stupid that the AngularJS seems to have decided to completely rewrite it for v2 using TypeScript, and someone got upset and split off to make Aurelia because it was more "pure", but apparently they're friends again now, I think. It's worse than a zoo, it's like a steaming compost bin. I got all excited about TypeScript last weekend and I spent an afternoon reading about it and fiddling to see if it has promise. So I create a new HTML project and I get one small source file that shows the time. The sample code is raw JS from the 90s and I have to go looking for a way to integrate jQuery and/or AngularJS into the project. So dozens of opinionated pages later I discover I just about have to reinvent the steam engine to try an integrate them, and there are literally dozens of experts all claiming they know they best way to do it, with all sorts of cryptic pseudo-functional coding tricks. I simply want to know how to structure a large TS project, but there is no reliable guidance anywhere, it's just a dogs breakfast. This is what happens when a script becomes accidentally promoted to become the new fangled language to drive LOB apps in the web without proper planning by industry experts and academics. There are no conventions for code or project structure, references, dependencies, building, testing ... anything! ... it's just a bottomless kludge of more tools made in JavaScript to try and make itself look and behave sensibly. I am now overwhelmed by despair at what damage JavaScript has done to software development in the 21st century. I know there are lots of younger developers out there who shrug and think "what's so bad, it's working", but I think they're just used to suffering and take it for granted. Greg List of JavaScript Libraries <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries>
