170: The Case for Vanilla JavaScript with Chris Ferdinandi

00:53 - Chris’s Superpower: Derailing conversations and having a knack for taking complex tasks and breaking them down into smaller, simpler parts that people find easy to understand.

01:44 - The Pitch for Vanilla JavaScript

03:06 - Peoples’ Biggest Challenge as a Developer

Having Trouble Keeping Up

Adding Processes and Tools Make it More Difficult to Get Started

“The Right Way To Do It”

05:50 - The Problem With The Way We Do Things Today

Front-End Development

Back-End Developers Move to Front-End

08:30 - Modern Web Development

The Use of Frameworks

Package Managers

“The Cascade is Bad” - Using More JavaScript

11:42 - A Better Approach To Web Development

Sometimes Old Is Better

Don’t Ditch The Old Just Because Something New Came Out

Embrace The Platform

Think Smaller And More Modular

Remember That The Web Is For Everyone

17:15 - CSS and JavaScript

Web Bloat That Affects The End User

Accessibility - Being Able To Work On Improvement

Accessibility Audit On Gutenberg

Being Too Heavily Focused On One Programming Language

25:05 - The Notion of Development At Scale

The Google Hiring Process And Frameworks

27:45 - Silos Of Technology

31:10 - Complexity And/Or Simplicity

Focusing On Quality Over Volume

Factoring For Growth

37:20 - Advocating For Vanilla JavaScript

Documentation

Unexpected Incidentals

44:10 - Gradual Movement Of The Code Base

45:30 - Using The Word “Just”

49:30 - The Concept Of State

52:45 - Use Of Static HTML

53:40 - Do Companies Actually Build For The Web Like This

Netflix Page Loads With Vanilla JS

Happy Middle Ground

58:05 - Summation Of Positives Of Vanilla JavaScript

Ease Of Beginner Developer Onboarding

Allowing Non-JavaScript Developers To Participate More Meaningfully In Your Process

Overall Resilience And Performance For The End User

Reflections:

Rein: Pick the thing that reduces your suffering the most.

Jacob: If you are just starting to learn JavaScript, it is ok to not learn a framework immediately. It is also ok to dive into something else and come back to learn vanilla JS. Also, Noel Rappin - Modern Front-End Development for Rails, takes a great approach to using differing technologies and what they can bring to your project.

Chris: Thinking about the instances where it does make sense to use some of these tools as opposed to reasons why you shouldn’t use them. Liked the talk about minimizing your pain.

If you feel like there are too many moving parts to JavaScript, you are not alone, it’s not you, and you’ve totally got this.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chris Ferdinandi. Support Greater Than Code