Tim Bray on Software in 2014

In his article “Software in 2014” Tim Bray says about the present state of front-end development:

Thus, for ac­tu­ally build­ing ap­pli­ca­tions, you’re going to have to pick a higher-level frame­work. There are lots of them and they com­pete vig­or­ously, it’s easy to poke around the Web and find knock­outs and cage matches; one good high-level com­paro is Rich JavaScript Ap­pli­ca­tions – the Seven Frame­works (Throne of JS, 2012) but wait it’s eigh­teen months old thus prob­a­bly now wrong, which is a symp­tom of the prob­lem. “What prob­lem,” you ask, “choice is good, right?” It is, but this isn’t an or­derly choice, it’s a Cam­brian Ex­plo­sion. I’m sure the soft­ware arche­ol­o­gists of 2113 will enjoy study­ing it, but it’s a prob­lem.

ongoing by Tim Bray · Software in 2014.

I completely agree, right down to the term “Cambrian Explosion”, and I ranted a bit about it in one of the few posts I wrote last year. Client-side development is a scary mess right now, where almost every choice you make stands a chance of blowing up in your face a year down the line.