About that Learning Javascript article

Many of you may have read Jose Aguinaga’s post,How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016. You may have laughed, or you may have cried. Maybe you did both.

I thought it was a fine way to poke a little fun at the runaway situation facing the JavaScript community. Most of the reaction I’ve seen has been combination of amused nods and quiet sighs. Some felt the need to rebut it. And some, of course, felt attacked. None of this is surprising.

For me, there are a couple of ways to respond to an article like Aguinaga’s. The first is as an apologist. I feel Tom MacWright did this with Everything is Fine with JavaScript

If someone is holier-than-thou about technology choices, they’re wrong and you should ignore them

The second, is to determine where the sentiment comes from and try to understand it, as Tim Kadlec does, in Chasing Tools

The thing is, it’s not the ecosystem that’s the problem. It’s great that we have a plethora of options available to us. It beats the alternative. No, the problem is the way we’ve chased after each new tool that comes along and even more concerning to me, the way we teach.

I prefer the second option.