Don't (Just) Chase The Shiny, New Stuff - A Case For jQuery?

00:00:00: - I'm stuck in a bubble.

00:00:02: I'm stuck in a bubble on Twitter X, I guess,

00:00:06: where I see some very specific content,

00:00:10: that's either some borderline creepy,

00:00:14: or boring or weird stuff,

00:00:16: Elan thinks I should be seeing

00:00:18: to stay on the platform and get more engaged I guess,

00:00:23: or, and that is what I want to talk about today.

00:00:26: I see a lot of Java script related stuff,

00:00:30: a lot of Java script related tweets,

00:00:33: or posts, how they're called nowadays, I guess.

00:00:37: And with that, I mean the entire JavaScript ecosystem.

00:00:43: I see front-end related posts,

00:00:46: lots of opinions and things related to React and so on.

00:00:51: But also, of course, some backend related stuff,

00:00:54: posts related to Deno or Bun, and Node.js of course.

00:00:58: And also posts that refer to

00:01:03: libraries or packages and solutions,

00:01:06: or patterns that are popular

00:01:10: in the JavaScript community, you could say.

00:01:14: Things like Tailwind, for example,

00:01:17: or other related topics.

00:01:20: That's the content I mostly see on Twitter and X,

00:01:25: which of course makes sense,

00:01:27: because that's the content I am creating on my own as well.

00:01:30: That's what I am interested in.

00:01:33: So that is fine.

00:01:35: I'm not complaining about seeing that content.

00:01:38: That's not my point here.

00:01:40: But this bubble has a problem.

00:01:43: And maybe other bubbles,

00:01:46: the PHP bubble, if you're in there.

00:01:48: maybe those bubbles have a similar problem.

00:01:51: I can't tell with certainty,

00:01:54: but whenever I see some posts from the PHP world,

00:01:59: at least to me,

00:02:00: they don't seem like the posts

00:02:02: I see in the JavaScript world.

00:02:05: And with that, I mean that in this JavaScript bubble,

00:02:09: I see a lot of strong opinions,

00:02:12: to put it like this,

00:02:14: that you must use a certain pattern,

00:02:17: that you must not do something in a certain other way,

00:02:21: that you must use the next Js App Router,

00:02:25: and not the Pages Router.

00:02:27: That you must use Tailwind and not Bootstrap CSS,

00:02:31: because that's outdated and old, and so on.

00:02:36: And, to some extent,

00:02:38: those posts of course make sense.

00:02:42: There are certain patterns you should consider following.

00:02:47: It might make more sense to use

00:02:51: a more recent version of a package,

00:02:55: or a more recent way of using a certain package,

00:02:59: like with the next Js App Router,

00:03:02: than following an older approach,

00:03:06: or using an older version,

00:03:08: that generally makes of course sense.

00:03:11: But what often gets overlooked,

00:03:14: and what can be problematic and intimidating,

00:03:18: for less experienced developers,

00:03:22: is of course that ultimately our job as developers,

00:03:27: as web developers, is to build applications,

00:03:32: build websites that are great

00:03:35: for our customers, for our visitors.

00:03:38: They don't care about

00:03:40: which technology you are using under the hood.

00:03:44: And if you are over complicating things,

00:03:47: because you're trying to combine

00:03:49: many popular packages to build

00:03:51: the ultimate, best possible web application,

00:03:55: and along the way you are introducing a lot of bugs,

00:03:58: and you're running into a lot of issues,

00:04:00: because all those shiny new packages and versions

00:04:04: might still have some bugs themselves,

00:04:07: if that's what's happening,

00:04:10: you are not doing your job right.

00:04:12: You're not building the best

00:04:14: possible product for your customers.

00:04:17: And it can also be problematic for people

00:04:20: who are getting into web development,

00:04:22: when they read all those strong opinions,

00:04:26: and when they get the feeling

00:04:29: that there are only a few right,

00:04:32: but a lot of wrong choices.

00:04:34: Because imagine you are starting off

00:04:36: your journey into web development,

00:04:38: and you took some bootcamp course,

00:04:41: or you're learning everything on your own,

00:04:43: by piecing together different sources.

00:04:48: At some point you might stumble across Bootstrap CSS,

00:04:52: because it's still getting recommended

00:04:55: by a lot of guides and tutorials I guess.

00:04:58: Or you might even stumble across jQuery

00:05:01: because at some point you read some article

00:05:04: that mentions it or anything like that,

00:05:07: and you start learning Bootstrap, or jQuery,

00:05:11: until someone tells you how wrong that is,

00:05:14: and that you must not do that,

00:05:15: that it's outdated, that no one uses this,

00:05:18: and that you instead should learn

00:05:20: Tailwind instead of Bootstrap,

00:05:22: and React, or Vue, or Angular instead of jQuery.

00:05:27: Or maybe even that's wrong.

00:05:28: And there's a more extreme opinion,

00:05:31: which tells you that even React is not a good choice.

00:05:35: You should be learning Svelte, and Solid JS.

00:05:38: Do you see my point here?

00:05:40: It's easy to get pushed off your, your path,

00:05:44: where you want to learn web development,

00:05:46: and get a lot of strong opinions

00:05:48: on what you're doing wrong,

00:05:50: and what you should be doing instead.

00:05:51: And therefore you don't know at all

00:05:53: what you should be doing.

00:05:54: and it's intimidating.

00:05:55: And maybe you stop your pursuit of becoming a web developer,

00:06:00: which would be a shame because it's an amazing job.

00:06:04: Still, despite AI,

00:06:06: I created a separate video and talk about that.

00:06:09: So it's an amazing career,

00:06:11: but of course not if you get pushed out of it

00:06:15: at the very beginning

00:06:16: because of all those strong opinions

00:06:19: and because of that bubble.

00:06:21: And just for the record,

00:06:23: because some developers,

00:06:25: especially in that bubble, might forget about it.

00:06:29: But just to make it clear,

00:06:32: the web is mostly not powered by React,

00:06:38: or by Tailwind, or something like this.

00:06:41: Also not by Node.js.

00:06:43: Instead, over 70% of all websites

00:06:47: that exist out there,

00:06:49: use PHP on the server side.

00:06:52: Or for example, also over 70% of all websites

00:06:58: still use jQuery.

00:07:00: Around 20% of websites use Bootstrap CSS.

00:07:05: Around 40% of the entire web

00:07:09: is powered by WordPress alone,

00:07:11: which uses PHP for example,

00:07:14: which therefore alone makes up

00:07:16: for a significant part of those 70%.

00:07:19: So what I'm saying here,

00:07:20: is that all these discussions we're having,

00:07:24: about which library and package,

00:07:27: you should be using to style your site,

00:07:30: or to connect to a database or whatever,

00:07:33: all these discussions are discussions

00:07:36: we're having for a minority

00:07:38: of all the websites out there on the web.

00:07:41: The majority is not using either of those

00:07:45: shiny, fancy packages or frameworks.

00:07:49: Now, of course, I know that we can't

00:07:53: look at the share of websites alone,

00:07:56: because that does not translate to web traffic.

00:08:01: Of course, those numbers I just mentioned,

00:08:04: will very likely not be the right numbers

00:08:07: if we would look at web traffic.

00:08:09: Because of course there are many websites out there,

00:08:12: but there is only a part of those websites.

00:08:16: A small part, arguably in the end,

00:08:19: that gets most of the traffic.

00:08:21: I mean, Facebook and YouTube alone get lots of traffic,

00:08:26: are responsible for a significant portion

00:08:29: of the overall internet traffic,

00:08:31: and those websites are not using jQuery to my knowledge.

00:08:36: Though, for example, Facebook was built with PHP,

00:08:40: and as far as I know, they're still using that.

00:08:44: So we don't even have Node.js there.

00:08:47: Instead, it's part of those over 70% of websites

00:08:51: that are using PHP.

00:08:53: Still, what I'm saying is of course that,

00:08:55: it's likely that many of those websites

00:08:59: that get a lot of traffic,

00:09:02: are using newer technologies.

00:09:05: Though I'm saying "likely," not guaranteed.

00:09:08: Indeed, there are thousands of websites out there

00:09:11: that are using jQuery, Bootstrap, whatever,

00:09:15: that are generating millions of dollars of revenue

00:09:19: for their creators or owners.

00:09:21: And therefore, those people who created,

00:09:25: and own those websites, did everything right.

00:09:28: They did everything right,

00:09:29: because they did not lose track

00:09:31: of that main goal every web developer should have,

00:09:36: which is to build a great product for their customers,

00:09:40: for their website visitors,

00:09:42: for the people with the money, in the end.

00:09:45: A great website or web application is not great

00:09:49: because it was built with React, or Angular,

00:09:52: or Tailwind or Prisma, or anything like that.

00:09:55: It's not great because it uses one of those packages,

00:09:58: but instead because it delivers real high value

00:10:03: to its visitors,

00:10:05: to the customers who are using this website or web service.

00:10:09: And that's something every

00:10:10: web developer should keep in mind.

00:10:12: Now, of course, we have all these newer technologies,

00:10:17: all these modern frameworks and packages

00:10:21: that solve specific niche problems,

00:10:24: because there are problems to be solved.

00:10:27: And because those different packages,

00:10:30: and frameworks, and versions we have there,

00:10:32: because those things give us tools

00:10:36: that ideally allow us to build better websites,

00:10:40: and better web apps that are faster,

00:10:43: have less bugs, and deliver a better user experience.

00:10:47: So of course, ultimately,

00:10:49: it very likely makes sense

00:10:51: to use a modern technology,

00:10:54: and to learn modern frameworks and libraries

00:10:57: when working as a web developer.

00:11:00: I'm not saying that we should

00:11:02: all go back to using jQuery, for example.

00:11:05: I'm just saying that it's valid to use that.

00:11:10: And that especially if you are learning web development,

00:11:15: you should not get intimidated

00:11:18: by all these strong opinions

00:11:21: you'll be reading, and you'll see along the way.

00:11:26: It of course makes sense to be open to new technologies,

00:11:31: and to ultimately learn some of them.

00:11:34: But you don't have to learn them all,

00:11:36: and you should keep in mind,

00:11:39: that it's less black and white than

00:11:42: some people might make you think.

00:11:45: That's really important,

00:11:47: because ultimately that is what will help you

00:11:51: stay a web developer,

00:11:53: and stay in that area without

00:11:56: getting pushed out of it and getting intimidated,

00:11:59: because there simply are

00:12:00: too many things you could learn,

00:12:03: and too many things people will tell you

00:12:05: you have to learn, or you have to do in a certain way.

00:12:08: And hence, it's important to set a goal,

00:12:11: and then focus on that,

00:12:13: and then go there with a open mind.

00:12:16: But don't try to just chase the shiny stuff,

00:12:19: and just use the latest versions of all the frameworks,

00:12:24: and the most recent framework that was released,

00:12:27: that will likely not get you anywhere.