Create React App is awesome, but can't shake the feeling the foundation is thousands of brittle packages with incredibly complex configuration (especially all the babel and webpack extensions)
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Replying to @maxlynch
"we started with CRA and..." is the answer to my "tell me about the build config?" question that lets me know the team I'm working with is in the deepest, darkest of holes. They now own a stack nobody supports (least of all them) and are years from mastering.
3 replies 4 retweets 32 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @maxlynch
Speed comes from mastery. Smaller systems get faster faster because mastering them is easier. Bigger systems require full teams and org-level discipline to manage. All modern frontend starter-kits, but *particularly* CRA, advertise as the first but saddle you with the second.
1 reply 3 retweets 18 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @maxlynch
The sin of these stacks isn't that they can't work -- they can be one helpful input into a complex and intentional digestive process (usually a bakeoff to learn what's what). The sin is that the folks pitching them knew better and told no one. Weaponised info asymmetry.
1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @maxlynch
The incentives are plain: if they were to tell you up-front what they really cost, they would be less attractive. So the entire industry furiously externalises costs to others, disproportionately impacting those who can least afford to pay.
1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @maxlynch
To be crystal clear: CRA is only the most popular of this class, but with a (thankfully growing) set of exceptions (Sapper, Polymer PSK, Ionic PWA toolkit, NG8+Ivy CLI, certain Vue CLI configs) the cohort is net-negative. It *is* actually better for teams to build their own.
1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @maxlynch
Why? Because making those contributing decisions is a way for teams to learn. And having made those decisions and weighed the component parts, they can be relitigated from a place of *some* knowledge.
2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @maxlynch
I keep hearing about projects where the developers have concluded that when it's time for change, there will be a complete rebuild of at least the front end anyway, so why worry? :(
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
This isn't how I *expected* MBA thinking to infect frontend, but if the intellectually tattered, morally threadbare libertarian shoe fits...
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
The incredible part about this (to me) is that having built disposable tech in nearly pure self-interest, they almost *guarantee* the rewrite. It's styrofoam packaging for services.
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