index.md 5.1KB
title: JavaScript, Community
url: https://www.zachleat.com/web/javascript-community/
hash_url: 7ff62009f2
I’ve been a full-time professional web developer for 17 years. In that time, I’ve seen things.
I remember when web browser developer tools were first introduced, using Firebug for the first time.
I predate even the WebKit mobile revolution: a time when proxy browsers reigned supreme and Blackberry was king.
I bore witness to the React schism, ruthlessly popularizing Single Page Apps and clientside rendering; giving rise to a slower web in the name of developer experience.
I embraced the npm revolution.
I rode the waves of Node.js.
I webpacked across The Great Divide.
The Great Divide #
The Great Divide really resonated with me. I keep coming back to it and I do think it continues to accurately describe what feels like two very distinct and separate camps of web developer.
The question I keep asking though: is the divide borne from a healthy specialization of skills or a symptom of unnecessary tooling complexity?
“Shout out to web developers that don’t feel (or haven’t felt) like they belong in the JavaScript community—you are important and your opinions are valid.”—December 9, 2022
I ran a JavaScript meetup for six years (2012-2018) and a JavaScript conference for five years (2015-2019). I maintain Eleventy, a JavaScript Open Source project. But I would never identify as being on the JavaScript side of The Great Divide.
Folks that know me from my time at Filament Group and my work with web fonts would likely place me on the User Experience side of the divide. I feel more at home there.
But I also vehemently reject that I have to exclusively choose one side, and perhaps that is best reflected in my work on Eleventy.
Mirror, Mirror #
The disconnect manifests itself time and again as accepted truths in the JavaScript community to me feel like anything but. I was reminded of that again today when I visited the 2022 State of JavaScript results.
“Solid and Qwik are suggesting that React might not have all the answers”—Source
Well, wait. When you’re straddling the divide, you pretty clearly recognize that React never had all of the answers.
“Astro, Remix and Next.js (among others) are making us reconsider how much code we really need to ship to the client.”—Source
Well, wait. When you’re straddling the divide, you know that Remix (67.7 kB compressed) and Next.js (90 kB compressed) have not meaningfully reduced their bundle sizes at all. Measurement reveals that bundles are growing: Next.js was 72.2 kB compressed in 2021.
The Great Dissonance #
This JavaScript community (if judged by the demographics of this survey) seems to be comprised mostly of folks that are largely building with React, webpack, and Jest. With React on 3.2% of web sites and jQuery at 77.7% (as of January 2023), that’s a pretty small slice of a much larger community.
We seem to live in different worlds.
I want to be a web developer, not a JavaScript developer.
If you live in a different world too, we should be friends.