Sounds like you really don't understand development if you think getting to use React isn't a big deal.
React (and others like it, e.g. Vue) really is a huge win and solves a ton of pain points common to front end development. It still has its own pain points, but it's hard to overstate how much of an improvement it is over other older approaches like jQuery.
> Building another dumb website with the new framework, yay.
He's just astonished how excited they are although what they build is "another dumb website" in his opinion. Many developers love the "how?" and don't care about the "why?". I don't judge it, but it can explain some of the excitement. Angular, React and Vue are great for development. But Ember, Backbone and others were also good back in their times. What he essentially says is "We use specific technology so they get excited although the problems we solve are boring af"
The reality is that since the days of the social contract between employer and employee are long gone - i.e. I show a company loyalty and they will keep me at least at market rates and not lay me off to “increase shareholder value.
Developers have to use the new and shiny to keep themselves marketable and be ready to jump ship at the first opportunity or out of necessity.
How frequently are developers being laid off? And why should companies just keep people around if they aren’t adding value? The lack of that “social contract” has resulted in much higher wages. Look at developer salaries in Paris compared to New York. Since there is more job security in France, the trade off is that “market rates” are dramatically lower.
I’m not saying that the lack of a social contract for developers is bad. I’m just saying it is a thing. But if you’re wondering why developers always want to do the new and shiny even if the underlying product is boring, they are probably doing resume driven development and looking at thier next opportunity.
My salary has gone up by $45K - $50K in the last 4 years by changing jobs three times. I’m not complaining.
But on the companys’ side, it was completely illogical not to pay me market rates. They still had to pay my replacement market rates and they loss institutional knowledge when I left.
Why is it that HR will approve a req for a new developer at market rates but have strict limits on what they can pay current employees.
There is different social contract there: in Paris the "fraternite, egalite" means you cannot pay developers more than the other people around and high taxes are a second way to ensure this will not happen. This makes Paris a prime choice not to do development and in the end gives dramatically lower "market" rates.
Don't forget that "the best of the best" more to places like Silicon Valley where they earn top dollar, the ones that chose to stay in Paris are what is left behind and a few exceptions.
At least this is what it looks from an European point of view.
Programming world is in a constant flux, now you have lit-html that gives you react in 5kb without vdom overhead. And in next few years there will be other interesting projects to look at.
With lit-element you get native elements that are similar to react elements. And only parts of the dom that changed actually do mutations - like with vdom.
They're both tools used to build interactive websites.
The parent didn't understand why developers would be happy that React got the greenlight. My response was that React (and Vue) really is a much better tool for building interactive websites than many older tools like jQuery.
React (and others like it, e.g. Vue) really is a huge win and solves a ton of pain points common to front end development. It still has its own pain points, but it's hard to overstate how much of an improvement it is over other older approaches like jQuery.