JavaScript Fatigue, or in my case JavaScript Paralysis…

Since starting FCC in March I’ve made pretty steady progress through the curriculum.  Of course I’d like to be moving faster, but considering all the other commitments in my life, I’m happy with my pace thus far…

That is until the past few weeks…

I was moving right along through the back end program.  Learning Node and Express was going well and I got through the API projects relatively quickly…

Then I moved on to the voting app, the first of the Dynamic Web Application Projects.

I’d previously experienced so-called JavaScript Fatigue, or the overwhelming sense you get at the thought of all the frameworks, libraries and tools associated with JS.

The past few weeks, though, it’s hit me something fierce…

photo by Windell Oskay
photo by Windell Oskay

While thinking about how to approach the voting app I considered using a framework, maybe React or Angular 2.  So I dug a little deeper…

As someone still relatively new to the JS world, comparing React and A2 isn’t exactly easy.  How do I compare JSX vs TypeScript if I haven’t seen either?

Babel and Webpack.  Huh?

Redux?  Flux?  WTF??

Bring on the JavaScript Paralysis…

I’ve spent the past couple weeks paralyzed with indecision and frustration…

Photo by Kenny Loule
Photo by Kenny Loule

When I was thinking about writing this post, I made a quick list of all the JS libraries and frameworks that I could think of.  In about 2 or 3 minutes I came up with 39 of them!!

Off the top of my head!!

39!

I have the scrap of paper to prove it!  No wonder JS fatigue is a real thing.

Moving on….

Look, I’m not going to go on and on here…  There’s been a ton written about JavaScript fatigue lately, most of it far more eloquent than this…

I just wanted to put this out there in case anyone else in the Free Code Camp program was going through the same thing.  Plus, I’m hoping this will serve as a bitch session to get it off my chest so I can move forward.

I’ve decided to say F-it and move on without a framework for the time being.

I plan on building 1 or 2 of the full stack apps without a framework, then decide between moving forward with either React or Angular 2.

At that point, I’m hoping FCC has updated their data viz section and the decision will be a little easier.

That’s it for now…  Get out there and code something cool, I’m certainly going to try.

-Jeremy