The Simplest Way to "Keep Up" With the JavaScript Ecosystem

I often hear the frustration or jokes around how fast the JavaScript ecosystem moves. Observations usually include things like "there's a new framework every week" or that you need a huge number of tools just to get started on a basic modern application.

The frustration can come from developers who either feel they need to learn several tools just to get going, whereas in the past you just needed a text editor and knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript itself.

It can be even more frustrating when you have large application UIs built, for example, in Angular but now everyone is using React. Your build process is fully dependent on Bower and browserify but now everyone is using Yarn and Webpack.

This is particularly difficult for enterprise application developers as you tend to end up with large code bases where you have little justification going in to "modernise" or refactor things if the application works just fine. This is where Java was traditionally favoured in the enterprise as the language (and platform) changes slowly, is (almost) always backwards compatible (so you can upgrade tools without changing code) and the toolchain hasn't moved that quickly either. Yes, we have Ant, Maven and Gradle now, but that's been a slow and steady progression.

So, clearly we don't want to move at a break-neck speed and keep refactoring working code bases, but we also want to be able to held back by slow-moving platforms. People might like the fast innovation and choice in the JavaScript and Node.js ecosystems, but how do we keep up with all the frameworks and tools?

Well, I have one suggestion to cope with "keeping up" with all the new tools and libraries and frameworks coming out each week:

Don't.

Seriously, don't keep adopting new technologies as they emerge. While a new build tool or framework might seem nicer than what you have, wait until you have an actual problem the new tool solves and be sceptical about migrating your applications to new frameworks.

Even for newer projects, carefully consider the cost of adopting a new tool in terms of having to learn it. Maybe stick with what you know and play with new tools only on side projects or in "10% time" outside of your main work.

For frameworks whose popularity is short-lived, you will be able to skip right over them and only move to things that stand the test of time. For frameworks that stick around, you will be able to adopt them when best practices are established and early bugs are fixed.

Learn to live with applications in older frameworks and on older versions of Node.js and you will be able to focus more time on adding features and perhaps even working on new, exciting things.