| > Instead, different components of the same page will update magically, giving it a similar feel to a native application. This model has also become more popular because ten billion ⁽ᶜᶦᵗᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ⁿᵉᵉᵈᵉᵈ⁾ different frontend JavaScript frameworks (React, Vue and Angular, etc.) have come into existence. Seems like a real "wet sidewalks cause rain" story. The model was becoming more popular among developers and then they made frameworks seems more likely than the other way around. Then the "ten billion" part. The three frameworks he listed dominate. Everything in "etc." is minor in comparison. I find this meme about JS frameworks lazy. (Note: totally a web backend person, so I should be the first to do the teasing). There seem to be much more boring answers: 1. With some exceptions (ClojureScript, TypeScript, Elm, ...), everyone who writes for the browser is forced to write JS. On the backend, people can express different opinions by using different languages (Python, Ruby, Java, Elixir, ...). So people that would split themselves into language camps on the backend are more likely to split into framework camps on the frontend. 2. The frontend environment is constantly changing (browsers) so the code is going to be churnier. You can't just not upgrade like you can on the backend. 3. User interfaces are more iterative than backend stuff, so the code is going to be churnier. 4. All this churn makes a rewrite more accessible and tempting. I just find it easier to believe that there's some difference in the constraints and freedoms of JS devs that causes them to make more (but not really that many more) frameworks, rather than there's some secret character flaw or something. |