JavaScript dos and donts

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Style Pass

2024-11-15 17:30:07

“Write JavaScript like it’s 2005” had been GitHub’s front-end team’s guideline since its inception, until React got pushed down from Microsoft management and most of us on the front-end team quit. If you are a user of github.com, consider how it has changed since 2020.

This is an old practice that has gotten lost in the ways with the manufacture of JavaScript industrial complex/ecosystems and frameworks. I hate to be the one to tell old tales but this is just another reminder that you can absolutely avoid dependency hell, We used to review every single dependency that goes into GitHub Dotcom and during our time the JS bytes continuously decreased as features were added. See Removing jQuery from GitHub.com front-end for how at that time we approached GitHub front-end. jQuery was only one of the many dependencies that we added with the goal to remove at some point.

I am sad to see new comers to web developments being bombarded with what you “MUST KNOW” when those things are absolutely optional for web development. One should not need to have npm installed in the first two months of your web development bootcamp, despite what the industry perpetuates. I am disappointed that our once open and low barrier entry to web development was raised so unncessarily and arbitrarily high that we don’t even know exactly what we are serving to users.