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Stack Overflow Stats Reveal 'the Brutal Lifecycle of JavaScript Frameworks' (stackoverflow.blog)
A developer on the Internal Tools team at Stack Overflow reveals some new statistics from their 'Trends' tool:
JavaScript UI frameworks and libraries work in cycles. Every six months or so, a new one pops up, claiming that it has revolutionized UI development. Thousands of developers adopt it into their new projects, blog posts are written, Stack Overflow questions are asked and answered, and then a newer (and even more revolutionary) framework pops up to usurp the throne...
There appears to be a quick ascent, as the framework gains popularity and then a slightly less quick but steady decline as developers adopt newer technologies. These lifecycles only last a couple of years. Starting around 2011, there seems to be major adoption of a couple of competing frameworks: Backbone, Knockout, and Ember. Questions about these tags appear to grow until around 2013 and have been in steady decline since, at about the same time as AngularJS started growing. The latest startup is the Vue.js framework, which has shown quick adoption, as it is one of the fastest growing tags on Stack Overflow. Only time can tell how long this growth will last.
"Let's be honest," the post concludes. "The size of a developer community certainly counts; it contributes to a thriving open source environment, and makes it easier to find help on Stack Overflow."
There appears to be a quick ascent, as the framework gains popularity and then a slightly less quick but steady decline as developers adopt newer technologies. These lifecycles only last a couple of years. Starting around 2011, there seems to be major adoption of a couple of competing frameworks: Backbone, Knockout, and Ember. Questions about these tags appear to grow until around 2013 and have been in steady decline since, at about the same time as AngularJS started growing. The latest startup is the Vue.js framework, which has shown quick adoption, as it is one of the fastest growing tags on Stack Overflow. Only time can tell how long this growth will last.
"Let's be honest," the post concludes. "The size of a developer community certainly counts; it contributes to a thriving open source environment, and makes it easier to find help on Stack Overflow."
Still just using jQuery and jQuery UI. They do pretty much everything I need. All HTML generation happens server side, and jQuery simply inline replaces the HTML content from whats pulled from the server. Doing things this way means only 1 UI stack, and it works across all environments, since only the servers need updating (plus of course routine updating of the jQuery/UI JS files themselves)
What happens if you need to patch or upgrade in a few years?
In this nude gig based economy, no one stays at a job long enough to do maintenance. Once the gig is shipped, you'd best already have moved to a new job.
It's kinda sorta like a combination of Bitcoin pin the tail on the donkey. The last one holding Bitcoin before the crash loses, as does the donkey last original developer to leave the company, who gets all the defects pinned on him.
Maintenance will be outsourced to India or China.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!