Scott Andrew

Posted December 3, 2024.

Frameworkism

Alex Russell:

Frameworkism is now the dominant creed of today's frontend discourse, and it's bullshit. We owe it to ourselves and to our users to reject dogma and embrace engineering as a discipline that strives to serve users first and foremost.

(Emphasis mine.)

I remember the moment I knew we were screwed. I was at our annual developer conference in the early 2010s. Teams usually sent a few devs to demo something cool they were working on.

I started to notice a common narrative from these sessions: we needed front-end, but we didn't have front-end expertise, so React allowed us to do it ourselves. Over and over. By the end of the day one presenter quipped "so, we ended up using React...maybe you've heard of it?" eliciting chuckles from the crowd.

"Front-end engineer" would not become an official role at the company for another five years. It was clear in those early days that React was a way for any engineer to "do" front-end, including those who weren't particularly concerned for the quality of the user experience.

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If Not React, Then What? - Infrequently Noted

Frameworkism is now the dominant creed of today’s frontend discourse, and it’s bullshit. We owe it to ourselves and to our users to reject dogma and embrace engineering as a discipline that strives to serve users first and foremost.

Alex Russell