| This is a valuable discussion to me right now. At work I've been tasked with looking into a number of front end frameworks (Angular 4, React, Vue, Aurelia and Mithril) to see if we'd like to start writing new pages and components in one of those as opposed to AngularJS which we currently use. AngularJS has a few specific pain points for our web app, a complex and (unfortunately) ambitious SPA. I'm building a prototype of one of our actual landing pages in each framework to get a bird's-eye view of what works and what doesn't. So far I've been really impressed with Vue, but my team has a couple of objections from the outset: 1) Most mid-level developers haven't heard of or used Vue, so the pool of candidates we can hire as our company grows will be smaller if we switch from a common denominator like AngularJS to something relatively unknown like Vue. I personally love to learn new tech, but not everyone does and a "Vue developer" job posting may not get a lot of hits. Then again, if (e.g.) 15% of devs want to use Vue and only 10% of companies use it, that's a clear advantage over 75% of devs wanting to use Angular and 80% of companies using it. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers worked out like that. 2) Vue is kind of a one-man band, whereas Angular and React are backed by large cap companies. This is the weaker argument IMO, since there's no law stating that Google and Facebook can't run up on hard times and decide to drop support for their open source projects. And after seeing how sloppy Angular's documentation is, I've lost a lot of confidence in the "bigger is better" argument. However, in a rational universe, it may be fair to say that Vue would die more easily than Angular would. My view on the situation is that it's better to use the right tool for the job and have less developers/support than to use the wrong tool for the job and have more developers/support. But I'm more technically-minded than business-minded, so I understand that I might need to be open to business concerns outside of my normal decision-making criteria. I'm keeping detailed notes as I compare frameworks, so I may do a write-up when I'm done if anyone's interested. (Although the "battle of the frameworks" genre has been done to death...) |
In web development more than anything else, the chances are higher that whatever keyword you hire for will be sidelined in 1-2 years. Even compared to other fast-moving tech niches, the web front-end arena is a batshit insane ADHD chipmunk in this regard. A DBA or a networking guy's current keywords are going to have at least five years of shelf life in some fashion. You can't count on those kinds of lifespans in the web world anyway. Yes, I also think that's ridiculous.
And so, "all-around competent JS developer experienced in a variety of frameworks and tools" might be the only viable hiring selector here.
Also, the barriers to entry to Vue are much lower. The simplicity is one of the main selling points. I'm not even a web developer by trade, but I picked up most of the essentials in a day or two. Admittedly, I did have a [kind of amateur] AngularJS background, which made that process much simpler, but I gather a React background equally predisposes one to rapid assimilation of Vue.