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Roboprog

Some interesting things on the "Front End Frameworks" page:

* 53% of the respondents used React, and would do so again.

* 47% use "No framework", and would do so again.

(hmm. that doesn't leave much room, unless you can use more than one tool depending on the situation)

* 43% had "no interest" in Angular 2.

One other thing to consider, of the "had used X, would/would-not use again" responses: there is of course a lot of selection bias of whether or not to even try X in the first place.

...

My only experience with these so far is Angular 1. It's easy to get started with, but does get messy when you have a very large form (think "government work"). I don't have a "React" axe to grind, I'm just looking at the numbers.

However, by the time I have to haul in Typescript transpiling, much of the appeal of Angular 1 is lost :-(

(it feels like GWT, all over again, at least to some extent)

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The way I read it is that each question is independent.

So I can say I've used Angular and would never use it again while also saying I've used React and would use it again.

This is really a pretty decisively positive stat for React. Very few of its users would never use it again, while a lot of people have tried Angular and abandoned it. (This certainly matches my experience and anecdotes I've heard in the community.)

> The way I read it is that each question is independent.

Mine as well. I have two active work projects -- one is React, and one is plain Javascript. The latter is to keep the project extremely lean (mobile form single time use type thing) and I've enjoyed using no libraries in it (yet). So I would have responded positively to both of those questions.

I know. I was joking about a coincidence, as well as pointing out some of the largest response groups. The "tried X and would do it again" add up to over 100%, so some people had more than one tool for favored for different situations (or at least tolerated employer specified selections)

That said, it looks like React is doing well, and I bet on the wrong horse :-(

For the record, you don't need to use Typescript for Angular 2, you can just use regular JS (or Dart for that matter). The documentation is definitely biased toward Typescript at the moment, but I anticipate the situation improving as the framework matures.

I used it (ng2) across 3 versions (beta 3-5 iirc), I used the flow type transformer via babel, which worked well enough. It'd be VERY difficult to do without some transpilation that allows the directive-style to be used.

For me, a lot of things in the templating seemed goofy, and had horrible, or no error messages when they didn't work right... I also still don't care for the DI system, though it's definitely a leap from ng1, I'd still prefer React over ng1 or ng2.

That's technically true, but realistically false.

Just like people used to say that you don't need to use JSX to write React.

What's the point of using a heavy duty, opinionated framework without embracing it completely? that's just bound to get you into a whole lot of hurt.

You broke my hope to start using React. JSX smells too much for me. But thanks for the info, anyway.

That's typical for people who didn't use React yet. In practice JSX is awesome.

JSX and React's a little different though, because its downright easy to use without. I prefer JSX, but typing div(null, { style: 'foo' }) isn't much harder than <div style="foo" />, if a little uglier.

And then you have tons of libraries to make it nicer.

I'd like to dive into React sometime when I get a side project that needs web development but I am a simple guy and I need a "hey stupid follow these conventions" setup in order to learn and grow and be productive.

There are a couple projects out there that do this but they're new. The WalmartLabs Electrode project looks incredibly slick and has good documentation so maybe I'll spend an hour or two with it this upcoming weekend.

From my experience this one seems like the best bet, being somewhat endorsed by Facebook. It's zero config too which is infinitely nice when you're just getting started https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app.

> (hmm. that doesn't leave much room, unless you can use more than one tool depending on the situation)

Or: There are projects that they would use React for AND projects (presumably different) that they would use no framework for.

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