My hot take: there's a general feeling of looking down on "web devs" or UI/front-end stuff. It's not really necessary to have React for a portfolio site, but it's not really an issue if they do.
I wouldn't consider myself a frontend developer--I've run infra teams, built backends, built desktop applications, all that too--and I'd definitely agree with that.
There's a lot of strange smugfacing about using fit-for-purpose tools that translates into the shitting on people by the old-at-heart and the underinformed. Like, stepping away from JavaScript for a second, you still see people getting mad about C++ on HN and defending the use of C outside of a micro because "just be a good programmer" even though maybe a few dozen such good programmers have ever existed. It's very weird and it's one of the things about this profession that bothers me a lot.
I am fortunate that I have reached a place in my career where I can simply refuse to have that sort of person on my team.
Beautifully said. Ironically (or maybe not), the worst engineers I've worked with in the last 15 years are strictly backend engineers who vocalize how frontend is easy / isn't real software engineering / etc.
There's a lot of strange smugfacing about using fit-for-purpose tools that translates into the shitting on people by the old-at-heart and the underinformed. Like, stepping away from JavaScript for a second, you still see people getting mad about C++ on HN and defending the use of C outside of a micro because "just be a good programmer" even though maybe a few dozen such good programmers have ever existed. It's very weird and it's one of the things about this profession that bothers me a lot.
I am fortunate that I have reached a place in my career where I can simply refuse to have that sort of person on my team.