Long-time ago, Javascript was used for solely creating fancy web pages.
At that time, Javascript programmers were labelled by "real programmers" as "not-a-real-programmer".
Unlike real programmers, they cannot do any complicated backend where the real programming is.
Hence, Node.js was born. They now start to build a backend.
At that time, Javascript has no frameworks. Javascript code was very unstructured.
Javascript programmers were blamed for not knowing how to write well-designed code. They don't have proper knowledge on OOP, SOLID, functional programming, etc. They are such amateurs.
Javascript programmers tried to understand how to structured a maintainable codebase.
Hence, tons of competing opinionate Javascript frameworks were born (every week).
As a lot of senior developers try to mock how Javascript programmers are amateur, self-taught and incompetence. Javascript community always triumph. As Atwood's Law: any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.
Javascript programmers can do anything you challenged them to. Sometimes in a very weird, unconventional, chaotic and possibly harmful way.
"You are not a real programmer, you can only do frontend" Boom!! Node.js
"You are not a real programmer, you don't even know how to struct code properly. You don't know Object-oriented design or functional programming" Boom!! OOP frameworks and Functional programming frameworks
"You are not a real programmer, you keep duplicate code all over the place." Well, let me put every single line of code and create an NPM package so I would not duplicate any code again.
So in some sense, I think Javascript community become what it was asked (or challenged) to be in the most unexpected way.
This article is a rant. But I have a point.
Maybe, maybe, if we are less grumpy toward new self-taught developers who happened to choose low learning curve language that can create a meaningful application very fast, such as PHP or Javascript.
Maybe, the Javascript community would not have to resolve to rebuild everything on their own, not learning from past mistakes.
Maybe instead of saying "Javascript is such garbage. They don't even have static type", you choose to contribute to TypeScript. We may end up with something more useful.
Maybe instead of complaining about how Electron and Javascript consume memory, you can teach junior developers to write memory efficient code.
Maybe instead of mocking how Javascript programmers don't understand OOP and write unmaintainable code, you can demonstrate what all those principles are for, maybe we could end up with less but well-designed Javascript frameworks.
I only wish for whole programming community to be less about elitism and be more about inclusive.
At least I can say that Dan Abramov, one of Javascript community influencer is one of the most inclusive developers.
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