[wayneftw]

As a programmer who has been using JS heavily since the late 90s and now doing mostly React and Node.js, I would say that finding the right modules and patterns to use has always been a big part of the job. It takes a lot of searching, experimenting, learning, judging code quality and reading the tea leaves on package stability and popularity.

Things have largely gotten much, much better for JavaScript though ever since Node and NPM came along. It's easier to find the right modules to use or at least the right ideas to borrow. Package overload paralysis still happens at times, but I'd personally always rather have more, rather than less choice.

The constant rate of change does make me feel like I'm always re-learning a new way to do the same old job, but luckily for me - learning potentially better ways of doing the same old thing continues to be enjoyable.