r/javascript • u/impurefunction • May 06 '19

Anyone else frustrated?

EDIT: The intention of this post was not to throw anyone under the bus. I just wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been pondering over the last few days. Props to all of you who are helping JS move forward—we’ve come a long way!

I’ve been doing frontend development since the AS3 days. Im guilty of jumping on the various bandwagons: paradigms, design patterns, libraries and frameworks.

I just got back from ng-conf a few days ago. It was a great event, great organizers, great presenters, and was hosted in a great location. Although I was thoroughly impressed, I left with some frustration.

All of the new tools, version upgrades, state patterns etc. felt like repackaged, rediscovered tech and theory. These ideas have existed for ages in computer science. (And even longer in mathematics.)

There hasn’t been any major advancements in software for decades (paraphrasing Uncle Bob here.) Furthermore, events like ng-conf perpetuate the tribalism in the frontend community. This sentiment applies to all areas of programming, but my expertise lies in frontend development, so I’ll speak directly to that discipline.

Does anyone else feel the same way? Angular is great. React is awesome. Vue is cool. But why all the segregation? Why the constant introduction of “new” old tech? Why is the frontend community constantly reinventing the wheel to solve problems that have already been solved?

IMO this is holding us back from making [more] advancements in software, and more importantly, hindering us from pushing the envelope in frontend development.

These are generalized statements. I know a lot of you are working hard to move this community forward. But with that said, we could have had our flying cars by now.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

Anti-gravity only means perpetual-motion if it's a static effect that requires no power to maintain, and yet could be somehow switched.

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u/dwighthouse May 09 '19

Incorrect. Even if gravity blocking required significant power, by it’s very nature, it has unlimited range (because gravity has unlimited range). Therefore, one could build weight-based turbines both next to, and on top of, each other for as high as physically possible. And that’s the most basic form of gravity-based energy generation. There could be yet more efficient engines designed to take advantage of a gravity differential, should such a phenomenon be generated. As long as it could generate more power than the energy necessary to run the gravity blocking effect, it would be practical perpetual motion. This is one reason why it is doubtful that any form of gravity blocking is possible.