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Comment by stephenr | Hacker News Reader

> You could have a similar experience with virtually any other language/platform.

I'm sorry but I don't believe the issue is as bad in other environments.

I've managed to pick up and make small patches/enhancements to projects written in Java, C, Ruby, Python - none of which I use regularly beyond the bare minimum I need (usually to patch some tool I'm relying on).

"Modern" javascript is just a huge pile of WTF with "Are you fucking crazy?" frosting to my eye.

> Turns out your kids actually manage to use the tools they built just fine.

The kids have a "new tool" every week because the "old tool" from last week has some problem. That's hardly a sign of "just fine".

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It is quite easy to pick pick up and make small patches/enhancements to projects written in JavaScript with minimum knowledge. When you are at the point when you are patching tools you rely on, you already know a lot. It is also much easier when you are starting with properly set up existing project.

The situation in article is equivalent of trying to add maven dependency to raw java project without maven, because you dont know maven exists and then wonder why other dependencies are missing or project is not imported correctly to eclipse. That is literally John from article.

> When you are at the point when you are patching tools you rely on, you already know a lot.

I think you misunderstood. I am talking about making patches/enhancements to tools written in languages I do not regularly use. So I didn't "know a lot" about the language or environment or toolchain involved, I generally knew nothing (from a dev POV) about it. The small exceptions there would be a Java project (StanfordNLP) and a C project (the PHP language/runtime), where I had use the language in question to write 'hello world' type programs as a student, as part of my Network Engineering diploma, close to 20 years ago.

> The situation in article is equivalent of trying to add maven dependency to raw java project without maven, because you dont know maven exists and then wonder why other dependencies are missing or project is not imported correctly to eclipse.

The first command "John" runs in the article is: `npm install packageName --save`, as recommended by the package’s README.

> The first command "John" runs in the article is: `npm install packageName --save`, as recommended by the package’s README.

Likewise, java library would have "add this dependency" in its README followed by xml snippet. It would not start from "create maven project" nor explained how you get pom.xml. It is assumed you know what maven is.

> I am talking about making patches/enhancements to tools written in languages I do not regularly use. So I didn't "know a lot" about the language or environment or toolchain involved, I generally knew nothing (from a dev POV) about it. The small exceptions there would be a Java project (StanfordNLP) and a C project (the PHP language/runtime), where I had use the language in question to write 'hello world' type programs as a student, as part of my Network Engineering diploma, close to 20 years ago.

That is exactly what I am talking about. You do not need to know a lot. In java world, you need to know about maven existing and that maven dependency means you have to have maven project.

In JavaScript, you are expected to know that npm dependency means you have to have npm project.

The kids have a "new tool" every week because the "old tool" from last week has some problem. That's hardly a sign of "just fine".

The old tool(s) will actually still work just fine, and plenty of people use them. Kinda like Python 2 and Python 3. You're not forced to use the absolute newest set of packages. I'm not as familiar with Java and Ruby but the I know the C/C++ ecosystem has gone through many changes over the decades. Perhaps the situation with JS is currently overwhelming and maybe it will settle down over time, but I don't think it's a bad thing that lots of people are motivated to keep iterating and improving the tools. Personally I find the JS development experience very smooth and enjoyable, and I know many of the people building all these crazy new things do as well.

Can you give some examples?

Examples of the WTFs or examples of other projects I was able to work on with little experience?

The WTFs

The biggest WTF for me is you want to solve problem X. Great someone has written some code in a library to solve X. You want to understand it. Cool, let's look at the source. It uses source transpiler #2 of the big 4, bundler #1 of the big 5, ui library #33 of the big 50, and oh yeah it uses proxies to make everything return a promise so g'luck debugging that.

>left-pad

That is all.

Did you ever search has or is prefix on npm?

You are in for a treat.

Yeah, its just not something I believe I should be promoting, as a developer, as a solution to anything.

Its like .. Sure, meth might be fun, but I definitely don't think I wanna hang out when all the people in the room are doing it.

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