found drama

The Future of the JavaScript front-end framework, by Robert Greyling:

It’s a good thing being able to configure a framework, and even better when those configurations fall back on conventions, but being able to swap out parts of a framework, or better yet, leave them out entirely is crucial when it comes to building web apps today†Š–†Šespecially with the explosion of mobile devices.

More/less the same drum getting beaten by so many right now (see also: the Joreteg’s announcement about Ampersand, although this opinion piece is probably a better illustration of the theme) – and by that I mean: “Go ahead and provide an all-inclusive framework, but be modular so I can swap out the parts I need.” Which is great, but I would say misses a big point: discoverability of those modules. Say what you will about Spring’s role in the Java eco-system, but its worthwhile to align with a single trustworthy starting point. Part of what’s missing from the “framework fatigue” discussion is just that – that our “big frameworks” only provide a relatively thin slice of what our whole app needs and we’re in “contrib” (and/or plugin, and/or mixin, etc.) hell for everything else. This glosses over the BIG-Big frameworks of a few years ago (e.g., dojo, ExtJS, YUI), but the point stands.

(A version of this previously appeared as my comment on Prismatic.)

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