[purpletoned]

If you're using something like Angular, Ember or React, it's safe to assume that you'll be building a Single Page Application with the majority of code in Javascript. So evaluating libraries for stability, functionality etc is time well-spent, not wasted.

While it is true that there are far too many frameworks that come and go in JS land, you can find very stable, well-maintained and clean libraries too. For anything that's essential to your stack(DOM interaction, routing, UI elements etc), typically you'll find multiple well tested and stable libraries. Atleast, that has been my experience.

With well designed libraries, integration is rarely a problem. They are designed to be interoperable and don't make too many assumptions about things they aren't good at.

It takes a little bit of work upfront, but I find it's far better than relying on monolithic frameworks that tries to do everything under the sun(and usually fail).

Switch to React, I guarantee you that your front-end dev time(and overall) dev time will drop drastically to 20% :)

[rantanplan]

I had invested time in Angular. I don't think it was wasted time. If nothing else, it made me hate the JS world about 1% less.

For every well maintained JS "technology" there are 100 others that aren't and they occupy the same playground. Evaluating them takes more time than one might think and at the end of the day, what you choose carries a huge risk. Yes this also happens in other aspects/technologies, but with JS stuff the risk is almost always higher.

A word about monolithic systems; You give too much credit on what a JS framework does. It's just one job. Do you ascribe the same term to GTK or Qt for example?

To be honest, React seems decent. I don't necessarily disagree with you, you just touched... a nerve of mine :)

If I ever have to evaluate JS frameworks again, React will have its turn then.

Cheers