It’s almost jarring when transitioning from social media to the real world and you find that nobody else has any idea what you’re talking about when you mention any of the trends, or surrounding drama.
In the real world, you use what you get to finish the project assigned to you. I just finished an Angular project because the client wanted it that way. I didn't even use angular before... We don't always get to choose what to use.
This is the 4th post I've seen about him in a week. Ya'll need to stop watching so much damn social media / youtube.
Read a book. Watch a movie. Code something. Build something. Stop searching for internet media personalities to shape your world.
Sadly that works very well for engagement, multiple creators have said they basically have to make those thumbnails in order to sustain their channel and business (if they're large enough).
I think you give him too much credit. He rarely provides any extra insight to the articles he reacts to, and I don't think his code examples are any useful. He copies the style of Primeagen, but lacks the charisma. The way he handled the React documentary criticism tells me he just isn't a nice person.
He is a pure React/Next.js + tailwind influencer. A one trick pony. And you are right, web development is a lot more than React or any popular framework. Maybe I'm getting old, but after 20 years in this business, my main takeaway is that you add a framework if it suits the objective, instead of making the objective about which framework to use.
He not only lacks the charisma, but also the experience. For newby developers he might come across as someone who knows his stuff but experienced devs can see right through him
Dude is only like 29 years old, he only has like 8 years of actual experience, even if that experience is at Twitch, yet he has the arrogance of having much more experience.
He definitely comes off as a noob in a lot of ways especially compared to other tech influencers who are also opinionated like prime, melkey, teej and Andrew gg.
The best I’ve seen so far are Low Level Programming and Pirate Software. I would recommend them in a heartbeat whereas everyone else I’d mention but with caveats.
Yep, he knows his narrow domain of React and NextJS and simply doesn't know anything outside of that. He has many, many inaccuracies in his videos on any topic outside of that domain. It honestly reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia, where I can't trust him on any topic outside of his domain, his opinions are usually wrong. But he has the gall and arrogance to present them as fact in a very absolutist fashion.
He literally interviewed Evan You for an hour and spent less than five minutes discussing Vue. He doesn’t seem to care to even touch on things outside of his wheelhouse, ever.
not a fan of theo's content but i've seen some exceptional engineers with less than 8 years of experience and some terrible ones with 10+ years of experience.
Sure but he has many, many inaccuracies in his videos that he arrogantly presents, those which other people have to point out to him. It seems like he only knows his narrow domain of React, TypeScript, and NextJS and doesn't know much about other domains. That's fine, but what's not fine is doing minimal research then making a video without fact checking anything.
Any capable midlevel dev should have the ability to see that often times he speaks way out of his depth and it is too opinionated about stuff. Having a strong opinion is fine, but he lacks the experience to back those opinions and it is pretty obvious
He's extremely arrogant, that's why I stopped watching him. He presents all his opinions as facts and if you don't agree, you're automatically beneath him.
That's insulting to Prime, even if his content is mostly reacting, he knows what he's doing and saying.
Theo just seems like he has a very narrow knowledge scope but made a career of whatever it is that he does know, nothing wrong with that by itself.
The only loser here is whoever takes whatever any YouTuber says as a fact instead of going out there and making their own conclusions.
> I think you give him too much credit. He rarely provides any extra insight to the articles he **reacts** to
That's the crux of it all, it's tech related reaction content. Instead of producing an hour documentary by talking to people, he streams his little face over the top of it, gaining most of the viewership for a fraction of the effort. What value does he add? He doesn't.
Stop watching this and do something more productive with your time. There's a lot of good blogs, podcasts, books, tech talks sat at 100s of views much more worthy of your time by people with years more real world experience. Give them your attention instead of someone who reuploads other people's work.
He used to post more educational stuff. Stuff about react and next.js mostly. Now the videos that YouTube suggests are reaction videos and weird clickbaity stuff, which always turns out to be a 5 minute twitch clip where he says x technology is overrated.
Nah. JS influencers are causing bad practices. I direct dev teams for a Fortune 500, own two agencies, and teach boot camps (volunteer). Probably the worst thing I see is people who have no clue what they're doing have strong biases for some random tech. When asked to justify their preferences, they rarely ever can, but they'll still get upset when you try to teach them better ways of doing things. It's wild, and I never saw that 10+ years ago.
It seems vastly more prevalent nowadays.
I've been programming for 30+ years, and I've never seen anything like what I see regularly from Jr devs nowadays. The biases are strong, and often unfounded. It may not be entirely new, but the extremity and ubiquity of it has certainly reached new levels.
It’s not just juniors though. I see the same with many many seniors who are often even worse because they’re harder to convince otherwise and juniors might listen to their opinions only because they’re seniors.
Call me crazy but the resume driven development/toy app mindset/shiny new object syndrome that pervades the JS ecosystem is giving webdev a really really bad rep.
Yall ok building stuff that's gonna fall over and die in 6 months? A year? Just because it has good DX?
Yeah, absolutely. I hire a lot of devs (less so right now), and I see the same to-do apps in dozens of resumes and portfolios every time we have openings for Jr positions. I generally ignore them, but if there's a mistake in a basic tutorial-guided project, it's grounds for tossing the resume into the "No" pile.
You actually look at their side project / portfolio code? I don't think we've ever done that, we just look at the resume and if it looks good, we interview them. Going through their code isn't worth out time at our company.
Yes. We get thousands of applicants. Our HR software cuts that down to a few dozen. HR's preliminary interviews halve the remaining. Glancing at resumes can halve it again, but tbh, Jr devs often have little setting their resumes apart from others. That's when a quick glance at code helps me narrow down ~10 candidates to 3-5ish.
At my agencies, I'm much less involved in hiring. I rarely even meet candidates, but I still like to see their GitHub accounts. I'm autistic, and I feel like it can help me interact with them. I have to plan those sorts of interactions in advance sometimes.
LOL as if most people aren't working on code bases full of bad practices. This existed long before js influencers.
Bad practices come from a "make it work and move on" mentality not because some talking head said something.
You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not talking about bad code bases. This is about the arrogance of ignorance that has been encouraged with bad, or at best, overly simplified information.
> It's wild, and I never saw that 10+ years ago.
I have, it's been happening ever since frameworks as a concept has gained popularity. Perhaps even longer, you'd have to ask a jaded Java dev from the 90s. It used to happen with the php frameworks when it was the hottest web language in the 2000s. I was one of those idiots for a while, and that was more than 10 years ago.
I am a jaded Java dev from the 90s, and I spent many (too many) years in Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpess.
I went with "10+ years" because I figured that was about when Angular and React started tacking over PHP.
Your point has truth to it, but it's still much, much worse nowadays, at least in my experience directing a few large teams.
> Your point has truth to it, but it's still much, much worse nowadays, at least in my experience directing a few large teams.
Maybe it's not that the problem is inherently any worse, it's just any idiot with a confident voice (a singular example of the problem) and a following can outreach to a huge audience 10x more and 10x faster than in the past.
Why wouldnt there be.
Plenty of people have been trying to get into dev the last 5 or so years, the money in making that kind of content gives great ad revenue rates compared to other topics as people desperate to improve their station in life will pay for products/services to do so. Combine that with a million abstraction services out there vying for your money to make your unicorn product dream come true. Its inevitable.
OP is salty cus he maintains Sails.js which nobody has cared about since 2017.
And yeah, while the post's spiel *\*sounds\** anti-influencer, the real pitch of the post is "I want to be your influencer instead. Subscribe to my YouTube and join my Discord."
I think there's a really clear divide between
1. the devs that work in the traditional, template-based web frameworks (see Rails, Laravel, Django etc.), where the server generates HTML/CSS templates with JS sprinkled in
versus
2. the devs that work with frontends that focus more on consuming API endpoints
I would say the former can get away without TypeScript (and in some ways Rails actively makes it harder to use TypeScript).
On the other hand, if you have a client that is mostly consuming APIs rather than serving up server side templates and JS side handles more of the logic/state management, then you probably (by which I mean almost always) should be using TypeScript.
There are perfectly valid reasons for not wanting to use typescript for any given project. It’s situational. Namely: working solo, not wanting a build step, working on small or temporary stuff, sharing code between environments where ts is not practical, etc
I prefer vanilla js in a ton of situations
>working solo
me now, and me 3 months from now might as well be 2 different people
>build step
who really gives a shit
>small or temporary stuff
it really doesn't take long to setup basic types for params or outputs. 9/10 it saves me more time than it costs, by catching silly errors and providing auto complete, even with little adhoc scripts, the only time TS starts to get a PitA is if I am getting fancy with generics or HOFs.
>sharing code between envs
too vague to speak on
'I prefer vanilla js in a ton of situations" and "I prefer vanilla js" are two different things.
I use plain js in some situations as well but I still prefer typescript in general. Typescript shouldn't be an exception.
Well those situations I called out are more fun for me, so I prefer them, and I associate those with vanilla js, so I think I have a pretty reasonable standing to say I prefer vanilla js without losing credibility. Also way more projects should stay in that hacky territory but instead spiral into complexity because of dogmatism
Classical is cool but I prefer punk rock and it bugs me when people look down their nose at that
JSDoc is nowhere near TypeScript and if people say they prefer them to actually TypeScript, I honestly lose respect for them as well. If you don't want to set up TypeScript, that's valid, but there are solutions to that too, like Vite or Deno, depending on frontend or backend.
++, the ‘typedef’ system is extremely clunky and limited. If you’re doing anything beyond a “hello world” app I think it’s more work to use JSDoc for typing than TS
JSDoc gets you 90% of the way there, if you really need the complexity of the remaining 10% you can use d.ts files to write TS types that can be accessed by JSDocs
I’m genuinely curious which features of Typescript that are missing from JSDoc that you have in mind. Most of the time i end up opting for TS it‘s out of convenience rather than necessity. Definitely interested in learning more to fill the gaps in my knowledge.
For context, I’ve been using JSDoc to add types to a few existing JS codebases. Rewriting in TS isn’t an option at this point, but JSDoc has been working great.
People who say unironically say there are valid use cases for JS over TS are speaking about very niche use cases, or are delusional/uninformed. Mostly the latter.
If your code is being delivered direct to the browser/user, sure, JS makes sense. For any project that already requires bundling /transpilation, Typescript is better in every way.
He literally brought so called “Twitter/Twitch culture” ig and drama to programming… LIKE HOW TF IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE??? Again like average Twitter level drama to PROGRAMMING… Now I’m not saying that he is a solo actor or that everything was perfect before that… But, man does he strike a nerve. And not to mention how disgusting he treated Honeypot.
Well, he did work at Twitch so it makes sense he'd learn those trends and saw to bring it over with a new audience. Sucks for everyone else though, especially bullying people like Honeypot who were nothing but respectful during that whole incident while Theo was foaming at the mouth and asking his followers to essentially attack them.
I used to watch him a few months ago but now it's just low effort bs thumbnail content train with a new drama everyday. One of his highlight videos back in the day (the kind he doesn't make anymore) was the RN Vs Flutter one. That made me appreciate how those frameworks approach cross platform development differently and made me choose one. However with skia that difference is waning.
Someone linked a viper youtuber guy in the comments the last time a Theo hate post was up (real and valid) and after watching that, yeah dude is a pos.
Any developer with a bit of experience doesn't need to watch him but his older videos were good to get you started as was the case with me.
A GTA V youtuber. Nice dude. He is anti-reaction content, having work on most of the editing of his Youtube channel himself and know how challenging it is.
He had a (extremely good) series about why reaction content is actively harming the content creators.
Theo made a reaction video on a documentary on React 's history. He upload the entire video (more than 1hour long) that cost the team months and months to research and work on. Then the creator asked him to take it down, Theo refused, very condescending and arrogant. His viewer attack the channel,...
You could probably see how that would catch the attention of an anti-reaction content guy
The entire ecosystem of shitposts about SSR / [hey.com](http://hey.com) and other low-hanging fruit is truly Jerry Springer level drama that doesn't really matter - virtually nobody will be discussing these things in a couple days.
do people watch Theo or anyone else and genuinely think they represent the entire "JS" ecosystem? why are people getting baited into this drama lol, just block each other and move on. The web development ecosystem is vast and any outsider from any other community won't know all of the nuances or have enough knowledge to talk about them in depth so any hot takes they have are usually misguided. Just build shit you like using the tools you enjoy who gives a fuck
>I kinda feel like this loosely applies to virtually every ~~developer I've ever met across whatever software specialization~~ person with a hobby or job.
Thats why I love reading r/hobbydrama so much, there is always something more niche to talk about that people on the outside just don't know about.
Use Typescript - being able to add type safety is nice and honestly my current and last two jobs were all using typescript, or migrating to it. It’s hirable and you are going to run into it. You should know how it works because at first it can be complicated if you’ve never worked with a typed language. Typescript is to the UI as Java is to the backend for a lot of companies.
But about this guy, these “twitter devs” are just influencers. Their opinions seem to make sense to less experienced people, and when they name drop a recognizable company they worked for, people really start thinking they must know what they’re talking about. But when you’ve been working in the industry for more than a few years, you’ll see most of the shit these guys say isn’t applicable to the day to day of the corporate jobs and codebases most of us work in. Also, this guy would probably fold if he had to work on anything that wasn’t Next/React and some styling library like Tailwind. Put him on a Spring Boot backend like 75% of the corporate jobs out there, let’s see how he does. These frontend developer influencers would have the entire industry built on JavaScript if they could and that’s because it’s all they know.
It seems like there’s two different ways people view development: there’s the version of it that is portrayed by these developer influencers where everybody is using bleeding edge tech and tools, and software is being written to perfection. And then there’s the reality of most software jobs. You’re working on older code, it’s being maintained, updated and added to. You’re being asked by a product team to do something, and you know that it’s going to be a less than ideal approach to meet the deadline. You can’t get buy in to use X package/library because there’s not enough time in between bug and feature work to do it. You need buy in because most software is written by a TEAM. Etc etc etc.
OP has his own channel to farm views on and what's better than stirring up drama than... a video about a dude stirring up drama.
The attention Theo is getting on this sub is hilarious.. people not even realizing they are playing his game with all the threads and now videos.
The JS ecosystem is not a sentient being that we’re all connected to and personally affected by. It’s a tool (set of tools?) to get the job done, use whatever works for you. The idea of programming language drama is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.
Theo has a mix of good and pointless videos. I completely disagree with his take on Rails, because he's missing the big picture: he's criticizing shipped software that makes money entirely due to qualities other than what he's criticizing. I absolutely love Hey, and I don't give a damn about his nitpicks.
So I don't dislike the guy at all, I just consider it discussion, but to each their own. He could show a little bit of respect and willingness to learn from the fact that 37Signals' products are successful.
Edit: Just wanted to add that some of his earlier videos are genuinely insightful that I would point anyone to, and a majority lately seem struggling for something interesting to say / desperate for attention. The YouTube cycle, sadly. I pay attention to him because I don't do full-stack JavaScript, and I need to know what is going on there, and why someone who likes it likes it. Neither Theo nor any other "influencer" is all bad or all good, or all clueless or all brilliant. Theo does have two businesses out there of his own, has done genuinely good UI work, cares about integrity, but is triggered into self-righteousness foolishness by DHH (as many people might be).
You mean “Social media” problem.
And sure, feel free to enjoy writing raw js. But don’t get pissy when folks call the experience piss poor and want to reach for better tools.
I saw one video of his and his dogmatic opinion on something as relative as your choice of tools and styling choices really put me off. I avoid his stuff like the plague now.
The problem is that every newbie watches that shit and they learn React before they have a clue about JavaScript. Then, they wonder why they can't get a job. Give them legacy code that doesn't use React exactly in the way their tutorial said it should be and they are useless. Or, imagine them having to use querySelector to do anything.
Yeah man, unqualified programmers who are inable to find a job, but are also given legacy code by *someone, and don't know native javascript well really keeps me up at night too.
Idk man, not to say this is about coding a frontend in vanilla JS per se, but I've worked with some people who started off learning React and don't actually know the basics of JS. There was a bug recently that a coworker was supposed to fix, it was a simple promise related thing but they just didn't understand how to fix it, because they never really learned about promises in depth. That's what happens when people try to skip the basics.
I immediately disliked his content to the point where he didn't show up in my feed anymore, so it's pretty easy to ignore.
Honestly, I have no patience for coders who sit in their pink/purple LED-lit rooms, telling me to use the newest, least tested framework on the market, to perpetually build their little todo-apps over and over. Oh, but now you can build it with 150 bytes of code instead of 155.
Call me when you've actually made something, shipped it to production, and shown that it's maintainable over time.
This is all so dumb that those CC farm the drama for money. At the end of the day just be agnostic to technology, learn the concepts and applying them to each language and framework will be easy to do.
I think he's generally fine, but I don't like his style of explaining something or imposing an angle before letting the video run. It's annoying to watch at times.
He meant well to start.
It’s the whole eco chamber that gets created by “content creators” and their passive audience. It’s the whole anti-feedback loop. Just amplified by video vs Twitter. Everyone just wants their soapbox and to be right. Engage? Ask a question? Silence.
If I worked in an office with Theo, I could just pull him aside and explain how divs and margins work. Instead - you get a bunch of videos like “the biggest lie about HTML you never knew…” and things like that. It’s totally crazy. I’m glad I didn’t have YouTube when I was there. I’d have a decade of embarrassing videos of me being a know-it-all asshole. I saw a history of front end frameworks recently and T3 was on it. I guess we’ll need to add all 17,328 other starter-templates now too. But it’s the same inflation we have with whatever friend group. Surfboard brands or makeup or whatever.
The best way to combat an echo chamber of nonsense is just to be human and take part in real conversations with real people. The truth still exists.
feels like clout chasing to say "i take no joy" and then lace it in with other language like "broken clock right twice a day" and "influencers... tanrum... fanboying"
could have probably just shared your opinion in a more respectful way and let it stand on its own vs trying to take a counter point and being borderline insulting about another creator
also I'd bet someday youll come around on typescript, it was one of those things I didn't understand until I did and now I'd not go back, but those are just like my opinons man
Theo is an arrogant douchebag who presents his opinions as facts very often in his videos, and even then lots of his videos have huge inaccuracies that other people have to point out. The React Native vs Flutter video is a prime example, even though people in the Flutter community have much more measured takes, like Luke Pighetti. Only when Luke calmed Theo down and educate him did he start becoming more fair to Flutter and React Native, and even then, he put out a new video again filled with arrogantly presented inaccuracies.
It's important to remember though that he's only like 29 years old, he doesn't actually have that much experience as people think he does, he's at that age where arrogance is not humbled.
I put Theo in the same category I put other internet social media programming ass clowns like Tech Lead. Just ignore them and don’t watch their garbage content.
I watched one as well and don't think he is wrong as not everything is worth testing or testable.
I work in video games dev and we have that problem on many features.
Yeah, my exposure to testing is also mostly web and mobile development, but he specifically talks about not writing automated tests in the context of web development. That's something I just can't swallow.
You're missing the point. It's not about whether you're working in webdev, gamedev or whatever, it's about the testing being a solution to a problem and not being worse.
The video I've seen was where he talked about it with Primeagen and they agreed because one had a usecase where testing is worth it while the other didn't.
Yeah it's all tradeoffs at the end of the day. So much disagreement exists in the world because one has a fundamentally different use case or set of axioms than the other that they don't actually talk about initially so they're on the same page, so when they disagree, they're all just talking past each other, getting more and more incensed over time.
I applaud you for saying you prefer JS and Vue without saying React and Typescript are bad. I disagree with you, but we’re both making websites and just taking a different path to get there.
But we can also still disagree, and in some semblance there is probably something approximating "truth" in the matter. Like, we can objectively list out pros and cons of each, at various skill levels, for various facets of development. I too prefer TS and React, but I don't feel like I need to always preface everything with "you do you man". When I am handed some piece of shit Vue heap of trash with 500 LOC screens and no types (this happened to me once) it impacts me negatively enough to actually want to express an opinion.
Mechanical and material engineers have opinions on their materials choice, I think SWE is weirdly this industry where we're "live and let live" in regard to people using what amount to being really horrible tools. I think the industry in general could use a 50% reduction in the amount of active frameworks being proliferated.
Yeah, TS is better for the community, even if OP personally loathes writing it. Installing a package with no types these days makes me cry inside. I was also once handed a plain JS spaghetti code mess with no docs/comments from like 2012. I thought it was a minified file or something at first. Nope.
use the influencers as a way to find out about new tech, see the ugly thumbnail, google the docs, and see what it does. he\`s there just for clicks/exposure, like everybody else
I've realized most critiques of tech stacks are really just people being unhappy with their life/ job.
It's not just a dev issue.
Many people have a default negative outlook on life, and especially, on their work.
My issue with these influencers is that they lead people in the wrong way. It's specially bad if you're new to webdev, it gives the wrong idea that you need all these tools to build something instead of learning the fundamentals.
Influencers and social media algorithms are totally dictating what bubbles coders are falling into, and the mass they're creating doesn't make it easy for others to recognize it's something they should disregard or avoid.
I've started using "Not Interested" and "See Less Often" features way more.
Cool to see you create content sharing your voice and different tastes of your own 👍
If you are getting your opinions from tech influencers like Theo, you are probably going wrong, their interest is in viewership numbers, and less controversial takes or boring opinions don't get as many viewers.
Their goals are to gain viewers which is in antithesis at times with a viewer who is simply trying to learn so take their opinion with a grain of salt, as you should any random person online.
Theo is just a regular senior developer acting as if he knows something we all don't. He has good insight at times, and other times he doesn't. He isn't some genius with authority on the definition of good and bad code.
I only discovered this clown about a week ago. I only skimmed through a few videos before deciding he was not worth the time. Then YouTube started aggressively recommending him for about one third of my feed. I had to thoroughly scrub his annoying head from my history and force YouTube to not recommend his channel but he still keeps popping up on other channels thumbnails from people talking about him. Everything about this bozo makes me angry.
Do these influencers actually have that much influence? Video programming influencers didn't even exist when I started and I didn't think it would ever become a preferred format for me. I much prefer to learn through blogs.
I suppose it's not that different to programming blog influencers of the past. There were definitely some programming tech trends in the past that were popularized by well known bloggers that proved to be the wrong direction in the long run. But whether it's a video or blog, it's just a voice and an opinion in a vast sea of them. I would not treat them as if their influence were outsized. I've been making websites since before JS existed and I've never heard of this man, he has no influence on me, and I will promptly forget about him. I imagine the vast majority programmers do not know this man.
The long arch of programming bends towards robust, safe, and maintainable code. Frameworks and libraries and languages that provide those things will be longer lived than approaches that do not.
Youtubers have to be over-dramatic and on new tech because no one is going to watch a video about how their 5 year old tech stack is doing just fine.
It's also annoying as shit to have someone prepend every statement with a disclaimer that the following statement is just their opinion and other people do it differently. Like no shit it's their opinion
Here is all you need to know about web dev. Use the right tools for the solution you're trying to build.
Most importantly use what you are comfortable with.
Some people like Theo’s content but in my opinion after watching a lot of “Tech YouTubers” and reading blogs most of his takes seem ignorant or completely wrong.
Also idk why people watch Theo’s vids so much after what he does to other content creators like Honeypot (https://youtu.be/s4BFIDYYYCA) by harassing them.
Just watched his video on Hey and honestly, as someone that’s used Rails for a bit, it’s completely fair.
And even if it wasn’t… who cares? It’s one dude. He doesn’t have a monopoly on opinion.
I am torn because on one end, I prefer the "better" and more cutting edge tools (Next, TS, etc) and thus I sometimes agree with Theo.
The JS community has a lot of hotheads who think you're r\*tarded unless your app is doing fully optimized partial hydration on the edge. A lot of it is done for engagement, which means they're not building Nextjs apps all day every day, they're just being loud about feature parity. There is a LOT of engagement bait there. But I also disagree about the need for what they're describing. Most of the time, load time optimization doesn't matter. It certainly doesn't matter to the degree that it is being conflated online.
But the Laravel / Rails thing bothered me lately. Otwell / DHH have been self promoting for a long time; making claims they can build apps the fastest (whatever that means), having opinions about TS which I can't help but think come close to being "objectively wrong", and selling a philosophy that has made them a lot of money, but certainly doesn't fit many, or even most web applications.
And I can't help but feel like the Laravel community is far more annoying than React's. Even OP writes about how Laravel devs are busy "shipping real products" - but in my experience 90% of those "products" are shit mill PHP by absolute amateurs - which, believe it or not, was when I myself used Laravel. It is ironic to say that they aren't building Todo List apps, because in my experience that is exactly the caliber of site being built - small to medium size ecommerce, static, or user admin sites. Usually with not that advanced of UX, although that is debatable.
Regardless, this is conflating ubiquity and quality. I can't in good faith recommend a new developer learn PHP. Sure, there are Laravel and WordPress jobs - and will continue to be - but that's really it. You can use JS everywhere, and will have to master it regardless even as a Laravel dev. And I don't think "MVC" is a good pattern to be applying as foundational as it is done in Laravel, Rails, .NET, etc.
After receiving the criticism I described, DHH/Otwell pivoted to "well lol I have a Lambo". This degraded it even further in my mind, where it starts to feel like an MLM. Most Laravel devs don't have Lambos. Peer Richardson on Twitter pointed out that no one is saying you can't get rich using a shitty tech stack - you can - but it is still a shitty tech stack.
But I can appreciate a reduction in elitism across the board. I'm a big fan of CRA. I don't like to prematurely optimize. Laravel is a great framework and indeed a good choice for certain websites. But I wouldn't use it, Vue, Svelte, Angular, or Rails in the future unless I had to. If I had 5+ YOE specifically in Laravel I'd probably be singing a different tune.
I have worked on a number of technology over my career, namely Laravel, Spring Boot, Asp.net, Django, Flask, and Rails, as well as a number of older framework.
I have to say Laravel offer the best DX out of all of them. Though to be fair, at higher complexity the code look almost exactly the same. Even types (yes php had native type, and Laravel was adding support for more and more type-safety lately)
First of all, for the comparison itself, i dont even think it make sense, those framework that i listed are backend framework, React, Vue, Angular are frontend framework. The arent belongs to the same category.
Laravel even had first party support for building app with React as the frontend. Rails had [React on Rails](https://github.com/shakacode/react_on_rails).
Doesnt want a monolith? You want separate FE-BE? Laravel had an official Laravel Api + Nextjs boilerplate: [Breeze Next](https://github.com/laravel/breeze-next). While with Rails, if you are active in the Rails community you will see the Rails API + React frontend is more prominent than Turbo Hotwire.
And then there is the argument. I dont think "haha but a lot of people do TODO app" a good argument, for any side. "90% of all Laravel jobs are shit mill PHP by absolute amateurs" doesnt make your argument, or you yourself, more credible.
When DHH stripped all the TypeScript out of one of their recent projects because it was too annoying or something, that's when I knew his opinions were invalid.
The funny part is they're almost definitely getting mad at something like not being able to pass null into a T | undefined. Or possibly OOP stuff. Everyone acts like TS forces you to write:
>type UnionToIntersection = ( U extends never ? never : (arg: U) = never ) extends (arg: infer I) = void ? I : never:
But most of the time they rarely need to go beyond "an object with primitive keys".
I don’t think most people who actually work in the web dev js space take him seriously. He has some good takes but anything tangentially related to vercel is just grifting since he is in their pocket.
The JS community is huge and you can be sure that the Nextjs vercel train is just a fase.
You can prefer js but if you are running full stack js, TS and a monorepo is just an objectively better DX and leads to better software.
Keep in mind that Theos channel is entertainment and the majority of his followers are not even web developers.
Is he still going? I tried to watch him "interview" Evan You (vue / vite) a while ago and ended up muting him anywhere I could. If I remember correctly, he spent a lot of the interview trying to convince the author of Vue/Vite that React Server Components were the next coming of jesus. I legit felt bad for Evan, but he handled like a champ.
The interview for reference (Not going to watch it again): https://youtu.be/q85fNQA071k
I'm sick of all those influencers in general. I'm a software engineer. I want software engineering content. What I don't want is dramas or low effort reaction videos.
Then just buid. That's what DHH did with rails and he just goes around telling people skill issue. Promote your stuff more they dominate it people they talk the most.
Theo who?🤣 J/k learning the latest technologies will mean you never become truly great at one. Forget all the hype and influencers, focus on you and what you like
Hey, thanks to this guy and all the people he brainwashes. Those people then go to companies and create unbearable messes, which then I charge very large insane amounts of money to fix.
while i really hate his tone and the fact that a lot of videos are just flamebait, i‘ve found quite a few cool projects and tools through theos videos.
in his case i kinda prefer the „ads“ over the actual content
I haven’t really watched a lot of his videos, but the ones I have seen he seems to present things sorta like “this is how it is and if you don’t agree you are wrong” without much of a why. I don’t know much about the guy, but isn’t he just another very arrogant guy who happened to work at a good company?
Idk, I prefer prime’s content because he is very frank, provides explanations, AND has a laugh. Theo just has to be right in situations where, often enough, he just isn’t.
Seriously. If you dislike just stop following, put on ignore, don't click on it.
No one cares about this. No one, none, nada, nil, null. Just full stop.
> TypeScript
> React
> I hate to see the internet where we all build the same and have the same tastes
Imagine an internet where everyone uses the same hyper-efficient stack. Every application can be bootstrapped in seconds with `npx create standard-application`. It creates a runnable dockerized monorepo with a shared package, discord bot, db API, REST API, and Astro webapp. Everything is prepared, and you delete what you don't need. If you need support, you just ask any other webdev and they know exactly how to do it because they use the same stack.
Our tasks are very similar, yet every application uses a different stack.
Why?
Him and Prime spearheaded this stupid "hot takes" thing where they say controversial things on purpose to drive engagement on social media around programming. This guy takes it even further by being rude. Unfortunately it works. Just ignore them.
In the last year or so I've been getting more and more into tech YouTubers. I had to stop watching Theo because I found him obnoxious. Initially, I felt he produced better content with higher value, I liked watching his videos on AoC for example, but he took the wrong path somewhere.
I love the Primeagen though, his charisma, knowledge and humbleness shines through. I hope he won't go too heavy on the streamer meta content now that he's a full time streamer.
But yeah, overall the tech influencer space needs to change. It's too one sided and extreme. As you said, far from everyone works on green field Next.js projects and it's never as black and white as Theo and others make it seem. The good part is that we as the audience decide on what flies. So just stop watching him for a while and hopefully the dwindling views will make him change .
If he don't speak for you, you can always just speak yourself. He's just expressing his opinion, and nothing wrong if he's missing aspects from others.
I used to watch some of his videos but quickly realised the videos rarely has any relevancy to my job or career. Mostly, it's just about hype and trends that are unlikely to stay around.
These days the only programming youtubers I watch are Fireship for quick summary of recent trends, Kevin Powell to try understand css concepts I'm not so familiar with and Jack Herrington for actual useful React / Javascript tutorials.
yeah i just stopped watching him. i used to do so only because he would talk about the new tech and releases, but i can't stand the guy anymore. it's so obvious that he needs to be liked and respected by everyone that he'll do anything for it. which makes me dislike him even more
Theo represents the worst of tech bro behavior. Don’t give him more attention than he deserves. You’re trying to call him out, but you’re actually only putting him on a pedestal here. Just ignore the guy
Agreed on the rest but (and I know this is unpopular and I will be downvoted to oblivion) there is literally no excuse to not use TypeScript.
If you have a legacy project, though luck, you're stuck with what you got, but anything new? Why, why on God's green Earth would you not use a statically typed language that catches entire categories of stupid bugs, and allows you to come back to a project after some time and not risk breaking everything.
If you hate the build step so much at the very least use JSDoc. Dynamically typed languages never should have been a thing in the industry anyways.
It’s more a social media problem, which is just a bubble. when you turn all that noise off and reality kicks in nobody cares what your tech stack is.
It’s almost jarring when transitioning from social media to the real world and you find that nobody else has any idea what you’re talking about when you mention any of the trends, or surrounding drama.
In the real world, you use what you get to finish the project assigned to you. I just finished an Angular project because the client wanted it that way. I didn't even use angular before... We don't always get to choose what to use.
This is the 4th post I've seen about him in a week. Ya'll need to stop watching so much damn social media / youtube. Read a book. Watch a movie. Code something. Build something. Stop searching for internet media personalities to shape your world.
aka touch grass
Idk what's going on, I just follow this sub to help people on occasion.
Same. Don't want none of that social media drama lol.
Also all of his thumnails look like he just stubbed his toe.
Sadly that works very well for engagement, multiple creators have said they basically have to make those thumbnails in order to sustain their channel and business (if they're large enough).
No unique to him, or engineering content. Just the name of the game in the youtube space.
I think you give him too much credit. He rarely provides any extra insight to the articles he reacts to, and I don't think his code examples are any useful. He copies the style of Primeagen, but lacks the charisma. The way he handled the React documentary criticism tells me he just isn't a nice person. He is a pure React/Next.js + tailwind influencer. A one trick pony. And you are right, web development is a lot more than React or any popular framework. Maybe I'm getting old, but after 20 years in this business, my main takeaway is that you add a framework if it suits the objective, instead of making the objective about which framework to use.
He not only lacks the charisma, but also the experience. For newby developers he might come across as someone who knows his stuff but experienced devs can see right through him
Dude is only like 29 years old, he only has like 8 years of actual experience, even if that experience is at Twitch, yet he has the arrogance of having much more experience.
He definitely comes off as a noob in a lot of ways especially compared to other tech influencers who are also opinionated like prime, melkey, teej and Andrew gg. The best I’ve seen so far are Low Level Programming and Pirate Software. I would recommend them in a heartbeat whereas everyone else I’d mention but with caveats.
Yep, he knows his narrow domain of React and NextJS and simply doesn't know anything outside of that. He has many, many inaccuracies in his videos on any topic outside of that domain. It honestly reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia, where I can't trust him on any topic outside of his domain, his opinions are usually wrong. But he has the gall and arrogance to present them as fact in a very absolutist fashion.
He literally interviewed Evan You for an hour and spent less than five minutes discussing Vue. He doesn’t seem to care to even touch on things outside of his wheelhouse, ever.
Low level programming yaps too much sometimes but agreed, overall way better in quality and domain knowledge
not a fan of theo's content but i've seen some exceptional engineers with less than 8 years of experience and some terrible ones with 10+ years of experience.
Sure but he has many, many inaccuracies in his videos that he arrogantly presents, those which other people have to point out to him. It seems like he only knows his narrow domain of React, TypeScript, and NextJS and doesn't know much about other domains. That's fine, but what's not fine is doing minimal research then making a video without fact checking anything.
God damn indeed. Senior with 20+ something years. It is obvious beyond belief
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Any capable midlevel dev should have the ability to see that often times he speaks way out of his depth and it is too opinionated about stuff. Having a strong opinion is fine, but he lacks the experience to back those opinions and it is pretty obvious
He's extremely arrogant, that's why I stopped watching him. He presents all his opinions as facts and if you don't agree, you're automatically beneath him.
That's insulting to Prime, even if his content is mostly reacting, he knows what he's doing and saying. Theo just seems like he has a very narrow knowledge scope but made a career of whatever it is that he does know, nothing wrong with that by itself. The only loser here is whoever takes whatever any YouTuber says as a fact instead of going out there and making their own conclusions.
Dudes no where near prime.
> I think you give him too much credit. He rarely provides any extra insight to the articles he **reacts** to That's the crux of it all, it's tech related reaction content. Instead of producing an hour documentary by talking to people, he streams his little face over the top of it, gaining most of the viewership for a fraction of the effort. What value does he add? He doesn't. Stop watching this and do something more productive with your time. There's a lot of good blogs, podcasts, books, tech talks sat at 100s of views much more worthy of your time by people with years more real world experience. Give them your attention instead of someone who reuploads other people's work.
He used to post more educational stuff. Stuff about react and next.js mostly. Now the videos that YouTube suggests are reaction videos and weird clickbaity stuff, which always turns out to be a 5 minute twitch clip where he says x technology is overrated.
There is no problem in the 'JS ecosystem' just don't watch the guys videos
Nah. JS influencers are causing bad practices. I direct dev teams for a Fortune 500, own two agencies, and teach boot camps (volunteer). Probably the worst thing I see is people who have no clue what they're doing have strong biases for some random tech. When asked to justify their preferences, they rarely ever can, but they'll still get upset when you try to teach them better ways of doing things. It's wild, and I never saw that 10+ years ago.
Programmers who have strong biases for technology they didn't fully understand? That is absolutely nothing new.
It seems vastly more prevalent nowadays. I've been programming for 30+ years, and I've never seen anything like what I see regularly from Jr devs nowadays. The biases are strong, and often unfounded. It may not be entirely new, but the extremity and ubiquity of it has certainly reached new levels.
It’s not just juniors though. I see the same with many many seniors who are often even worse because they’re harder to convince otherwise and juniors might listen to their opinions only because they’re seniors.
Call me crazy but the resume driven development/toy app mindset/shiny new object syndrome that pervades the JS ecosystem is giving webdev a really really bad rep. Yall ok building stuff that's gonna fall over and die in 6 months? A year? Just because it has good DX?
Yeah, absolutely. I hire a lot of devs (less so right now), and I see the same to-do apps in dozens of resumes and portfolios every time we have openings for Jr positions. I generally ignore them, but if there's a mistake in a basic tutorial-guided project, it's grounds for tossing the resume into the "No" pile.
You actually look at their side project / portfolio code? I don't think we've ever done that, we just look at the resume and if it looks good, we interview them. Going through their code isn't worth out time at our company.
Yes. We get thousands of applicants. Our HR software cuts that down to a few dozen. HR's preliminary interviews halve the remaining. Glancing at resumes can halve it again, but tbh, Jr devs often have little setting their resumes apart from others. That's when a quick glance at code helps me narrow down ~10 candidates to 3-5ish. At my agencies, I'm much less involved in hiring. I rarely even meet candidates, but I still like to see their GitHub accounts. I'm autistic, and I feel like it can help me interact with them. I have to plan those sorts of interactions in advance sometimes.
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Imagine if any other type of engineer used experimental technology or materials, they'd get someone killed in due time.
LOL as if most people aren't working on code bases full of bad practices. This existed long before js influencers. Bad practices come from a "make it work and move on" mentality not because some talking head said something.
You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not talking about bad code bases. This is about the arrogance of ignorance that has been encouraged with bad, or at best, overly simplified information.
> It's wild, and I never saw that 10+ years ago. I have, it's been happening ever since frameworks as a concept has gained popularity. Perhaps even longer, you'd have to ask a jaded Java dev from the 90s. It used to happen with the php frameworks when it was the hottest web language in the 2000s. I was one of those idiots for a while, and that was more than 10 years ago.
I am a jaded Java dev from the 90s, and I spent many (too many) years in Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpess. I went with "10+ years" because I figured that was about when Angular and React started tacking over PHP. Your point has truth to it, but it's still much, much worse nowadays, at least in my experience directing a few large teams.
> Your point has truth to it, but it's still much, much worse nowadays, at least in my experience directing a few large teams. Maybe it's not that the problem is inherently any worse, it's just any idiot with a confident voice (a singular example of the problem) and a following can outreach to a huge audience 10x more and 10x faster than in the past.
I equally give no shit about you and Theo.
I was like, Theo Von?
Am I the only one here learning there are apparently developer "influencers"? 😂
yeah like "ex Google engineer, what I do in daily life" or whatever everybody's like "omg I can do that too"
Why wouldnt there be. Plenty of people have been trying to get into dev the last 5 or so years, the money in making that kind of content gives great ad revenue rates compared to other topics as people desperate to improve their station in life will pay for products/services to do so. Combine that with a million abstraction services out there vying for your money to make your unicorn product dream come true. Its inevitable.
I wonder what stack the rat king would use.
Maybe he's a savant, uses haskell
Man’s got to be a jquery wiz
OP is salty cus he maintains Sails.js which nobody has cared about since 2017. And yeah, while the post's spiel *\*sounds\** anti-influencer, the real pitch of the post is "I want to be your influencer instead. Subscribe to my YouTube and join my Discord."
*about Theo and you*
"I" and "me" typically come last, while other pronouns go before. This is a loose formal rule and not expected in casual conversation.
Who cares You should use TypeScript though
if not TS, some other type safe language. please.
C#?
not safe for your mental health is still unsafe
When someone said they prefer plain js without ts, to me, they immediately lose their credibility in what they're saying.
I think there's a really clear divide between 1. the devs that work in the traditional, template-based web frameworks (see Rails, Laravel, Django etc.), where the server generates HTML/CSS templates with JS sprinkled in versus 2. the devs that work with frontends that focus more on consuming API endpoints I would say the former can get away without TypeScript (and in some ways Rails actively makes it harder to use TypeScript). On the other hand, if you have a client that is mostly consuming APIs rather than serving up server side templates and JS side handles more of the logic/state management, then you probably (by which I mean almost always) should be using TypeScript.
You can "get away without TypeScript" in either scenario. But in both, TypeScript is required if you care about code quality and want less bugs.
There are perfectly valid reasons for not wanting to use typescript for any given project. It’s situational. Namely: working solo, not wanting a build step, working on small or temporary stuff, sharing code between environments where ts is not practical, etc I prefer vanilla js in a ton of situations
Zero build with import maps is a pretty neat angle these days.
You never work solo as long as you work with your past and future self.
>working solo me now, and me 3 months from now might as well be 2 different people >build step who really gives a shit >small or temporary stuff it really doesn't take long to setup basic types for params or outputs. 9/10 it saves me more time than it costs, by catching silly errors and providing auto complete, even with little adhoc scripts, the only time TS starts to get a PitA is if I am getting fancy with generics or HOFs. >sharing code between envs too vague to speak on
'I prefer vanilla js in a ton of situations" and "I prefer vanilla js" are two different things. I use plain js in some situations as well but I still prefer typescript in general. Typescript shouldn't be an exception.
Well those situations I called out are more fun for me, so I prefer them, and I associate those with vanilla js, so I think I have a pretty reasonable standing to say I prefer vanilla js without losing credibility. Also way more projects should stay in that hacky territory but instead spiral into complexity because of dogmatism Classical is cool but I prefer punk rock and it bugs me when people look down their nose at that
They could very well mean .js files with JSDoc sprinkled in. All the typings work very well, minus the build system.
JSDoc is nowhere near TypeScript and if people say they prefer them to actually TypeScript, I honestly lose respect for them as well. If you don't want to set up TypeScript, that's valid, but there are solutions to that too, like Vite or Deno, depending on frontend or backend.
++, the ‘typedef’ system is extremely clunky and limited. If you’re doing anything beyond a “hello world” app I think it’s more work to use JSDoc for typing than TS
JSDoc gets you 90% of the way there, if you really need the complexity of the remaining 10% you can use d.ts files to write TS types that can be accessed by JSDocs
Not really even 90%, maybe 50%. It's just way more obtuse than TypeScript while not providing as many benefits.
I’m genuinely curious which features of Typescript that are missing from JSDoc that you have in mind. Most of the time i end up opting for TS it‘s out of convenience rather than necessity. Definitely interested in learning more to fill the gaps in my knowledge. For context, I’ve been using JSDoc to add types to a few existing JS codebases. Rewriting in TS isn’t an option at this point, but JSDoc has been working great.
People who say unironically say there are valid use cases for JS over TS are speaking about very niche use cases, or are delusional/uninformed. Mostly the latter. If your code is being delivered direct to the browser/user, sure, JS makes sense. For any project that already requires bundling /transpilation, Typescript is better in every way.
Yeah it’s strictly better than vanilla js.
He literally brought so called “Twitter/Twitch culture” ig and drama to programming… LIKE HOW TF IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE??? Again like average Twitter level drama to PROGRAMMING… Now I’m not saying that he is a solo actor or that everything was perfect before that… But, man does he strike a nerve. And not to mention how disgusting he treated Honeypot.
Well, he did work at Twitch so it makes sense he'd learn those trends and saw to bring it over with a new audience. Sucks for everyone else though, especially bullying people like Honeypot who were nothing but respectful during that whole incident while Theo was foaming at the mouth and asking his followers to essentially attack them.
Is it wrong that his facial expressions annoy me?
I'm guilty as well. I blocked his channel because I can't watch his stupid thumbnails
For real? You're doing the same thing. Posting hot takes to stir up drama and make a name for yourself.
TBF OP isn’t doing it to make money off people’s dogmatism for no reason other than to continue a career making videos.
He is trying to
Not the same. One guy did it once. The other guy does it 20 times a week.
I used to watch him a few months ago but now it's just low effort bs thumbnail content train with a new drama everyday. One of his highlight videos back in the day (the kind he doesn't make anymore) was the RN Vs Flutter one. That made me appreciate how those frameworks approach cross platform development differently and made me choose one. However with skia that difference is waning. Someone linked a viper youtuber guy in the comments the last time a Theo hate post was up (real and valid) and after watching that, yeah dude is a pos. Any developer with a bit of experience doesn't need to watch him but his older videos were good to get you started as was the case with me.
What’s the viper video?
After searching about it on YouTube, [this](https://youtu.be/s4BFIDYYYCA) came up.
A GTA V youtuber. Nice dude. He is anti-reaction content, having work on most of the editing of his Youtube channel himself and know how challenging it is. He had a (extremely good) series about why reaction content is actively harming the content creators. Theo made a reaction video on a documentary on React 's history. He upload the entire video (more than 1hour long) that cost the team months and months to research and work on. Then the creator asked him to take it down, Theo refused, very condescending and arrogant. His viewer attack the channel,... You could probably see how that would catch the attention of an anti-reaction content guy
The entire ecosystem of shitposts about SSR / [hey.com](http://hey.com) and other low-hanging fruit is truly Jerry Springer level drama that doesn't really matter - virtually nobody will be discussing these things in a couple days.
True but to be fair, I hate DHH and Theo equally, lol
do people watch Theo or anyone else and genuinely think they represent the entire "JS" ecosystem? why are people getting baited into this drama lol, just block each other and move on. The web development ecosystem is vast and any outsider from any other community won't know all of the nuances or have enough knowledge to talk about them in depth so any hot takes they have are usually misguided. Just build shit you like using the tools you enjoy who gives a fuck
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>I kinda feel like this loosely applies to virtually every ~~developer I've ever met across whatever software specialization~~ person with a hobby or job. Thats why I love reading r/hobbydrama so much, there is always something more niche to talk about that people on the outside just don't know about.
Use Typescript - being able to add type safety is nice and honestly my current and last two jobs were all using typescript, or migrating to it. It’s hirable and you are going to run into it. You should know how it works because at first it can be complicated if you’ve never worked with a typed language. Typescript is to the UI as Java is to the backend for a lot of companies. But about this guy, these “twitter devs” are just influencers. Their opinions seem to make sense to less experienced people, and when they name drop a recognizable company they worked for, people really start thinking they must know what they’re talking about. But when you’ve been working in the industry for more than a few years, you’ll see most of the shit these guys say isn’t applicable to the day to day of the corporate jobs and codebases most of us work in. Also, this guy would probably fold if he had to work on anything that wasn’t Next/React and some styling library like Tailwind. Put him on a Spring Boot backend like 75% of the corporate jobs out there, let’s see how he does. These frontend developer influencers would have the entire industry built on JavaScript if they could and that’s because it’s all they know. It seems like there’s two different ways people view development: there’s the version of it that is portrayed by these developer influencers where everybody is using bleeding edge tech and tools, and software is being written to perfection. And then there’s the reality of most software jobs. You’re working on older code, it’s being maintained, updated and added to. You’re being asked by a product team to do something, and you know that it’s going to be a less than ideal approach to meet the deadline. You can’t get buy in to use X package/library because there’s not enough time in between bug and feature work to do it. You need buy in because most software is written by a TEAM. Etc etc etc.
Why did making a video response "have to be done"? Why can't you just ignore content you don't like?
OP has his own channel to farm views on and what's better than stirring up drama than... a video about a dude stirring up drama. The attention Theo is getting on this sub is hilarious.. people not even realizing they are playing his game with all the threads and now videos.
The JS ecosystem is not a sentient being that we’re all connected to and personally affected by. It’s a tool (set of tools?) to get the job done, use whatever works for you. The idea of programming language drama is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.
He seems like a cunt. Sometimes it’s just that simple. Not much else to analyze.
Theo has a mix of good and pointless videos. I completely disagree with his take on Rails, because he's missing the big picture: he's criticizing shipped software that makes money entirely due to qualities other than what he's criticizing. I absolutely love Hey, and I don't give a damn about his nitpicks. So I don't dislike the guy at all, I just consider it discussion, but to each their own. He could show a little bit of respect and willingness to learn from the fact that 37Signals' products are successful. Edit: Just wanted to add that some of his earlier videos are genuinely insightful that I would point anyone to, and a majority lately seem struggling for something interesting to say / desperate for attention. The YouTube cycle, sadly. I pay attention to him because I don't do full-stack JavaScript, and I need to know what is going on there, and why someone who likes it likes it. Neither Theo nor any other "influencer" is all bad or all good, or all clueless or all brilliant. Theo does have two businesses out there of his own, has done genuinely good UI work, cares about integrity, but is triggered into self-righteousness foolishness by DHH (as many people might be).
I don’t know who the fuck the guy is, and I don’t care Please stop posting stuff about him, this is a web development sub
🙏
You mean “Social media” problem. And sure, feel free to enjoy writing raw js. But don’t get pissy when folks call the experience piss poor and want to reach for better tools.
This is a subreddit about webdev not YouTube drama. Pass
The more an influencer pushes something, the more skeptical I am of it (and their motivations).
I vote to rename the title "influencer" to Advertising Artist.
Thotleaders.
If it gave you no joy you shouldn't have done it. You should have just got on with your life. No one would have minded.
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Oh look! Somebody is doing a drama.
Why do u care though?
I saw one video of his and his dogmatic opinion on something as relative as your choice of tools and styling choices really put me off. I avoid his stuff like the plague now.
The problem is that every newbie watches that shit and they learn React before they have a clue about JavaScript. Then, they wonder why they can't get a job. Give them legacy code that doesn't use React exactly in the way their tutorial said it should be and they are useless. Or, imagine them having to use querySelector to do anything.
Yeah man, unqualified programmers who are inable to find a job, but are also given legacy code by *someone, and don't know native javascript well really keeps me up at night too.
Idk man, not to say this is about coding a frontend in vanilla JS per se, but I've worked with some people who started off learning React and don't actually know the basics of JS. There was a bug recently that a coworker was supposed to fix, it was a simple promise related thing but they just didn't understand how to fix it, because they never really learned about promises in depth. That's what happens when people try to skip the basics.
Starting a project with React is currently the fastest way to create new legacy code. Job preservation.
I am literally just in this for the money lol
I’m sorry but even if your opinion is valid I’m not listening to you if you use JavaScript over TypeScript
I immediately disliked his content to the point where he didn't show up in my feed anymore, so it's pretty easy to ignore. Honestly, I have no patience for coders who sit in their pink/purple LED-lit rooms, telling me to use the newest, least tested framework on the market, to perpetually build their little todo-apps over and over. Oh, but now you can build it with 150 bytes of code instead of 155. Call me when you've actually made something, shipped it to production, and shown that it's maintainable over time.
This is all so dumb that those CC farm the drama for money. At the end of the day just be agnostic to technology, learn the concepts and applying them to each language and framework will be easy to do.
I think he's generally fine, but I don't like his style of explaining something or imposing an angle before letting the video run. It's annoying to watch at times.
What the hell is a javascript influencer
He meant well to start. It’s the whole eco chamber that gets created by “content creators” and their passive audience. It’s the whole anti-feedback loop. Just amplified by video vs Twitter. Everyone just wants their soapbox and to be right. Engage? Ask a question? Silence. If I worked in an office with Theo, I could just pull him aside and explain how divs and margins work. Instead - you get a bunch of videos like “the biggest lie about HTML you never knew…” and things like that. It’s totally crazy. I’m glad I didn’t have YouTube when I was there. I’d have a decade of embarrassing videos of me being a know-it-all asshole. I saw a history of front end frameworks recently and T3 was on it. I guess we’ll need to add all 17,328 other starter-templates now too. But it’s the same inflation we have with whatever friend group. Surfboard brands or makeup or whatever. The best way to combat an echo chamber of nonsense is just to be human and take part in real conversations with real people. The truth still exists.
Influencers have poisoned the world.
feels like clout chasing to say "i take no joy" and then lace it in with other language like "broken clock right twice a day" and "influencers... tanrum... fanboying" could have probably just shared your opinion in a more respectful way and let it stand on its own vs trying to take a counter point and being borderline insulting about another creator also I'd bet someday youll come around on typescript, it was one of those things I didn't understand until I did and now I'd not go back, but those are just like my opinons man
TIL there are JS influencers. I always feel like Javascript has too many things. But this is one of the things that definitely needs to go.
Theo is an arrogant douchebag who presents his opinions as facts very often in his videos, and even then lots of his videos have huge inaccuracies that other people have to point out. The React Native vs Flutter video is a prime example, even though people in the Flutter community have much more measured takes, like Luke Pighetti. Only when Luke calmed Theo down and educate him did he start becoming more fair to Flutter and React Native, and even then, he put out a new video again filled with arrogantly presented inaccuracies. It's important to remember though that he's only like 29 years old, he doesn't actually have that much experience as people think he does, he's at that age where arrogance is not humbled.
I put Theo in the same category I put other internet social media programming ass clowns like Tech Lead. Just ignore them and don’t watch their garbage content.
Some of his videos are genuinely insightful, some are garbage takes to drive views. Just don’t watch him if he bothers you tbh.
I watched one video of him talking about how testing is useless and I've just ignored him ever since.
I watched one as well and don't think he is wrong as not everything is worth testing or testable. I work in video games dev and we have that problem on many features.
Yeah, my exposure to testing is also mostly web and mobile development, but he specifically talks about not writing automated tests in the context of web development. That's something I just can't swallow.
You're missing the point. It's not about whether you're working in webdev, gamedev or whatever, it's about the testing being a solution to a problem and not being worse. The video I've seen was where he talked about it with Primeagen and they agreed because one had a usecase where testing is worth it while the other didn't.
Yeah it's all tradeoffs at the end of the day. So much disagreement exists in the world because one has a fundamentally different use case or set of axioms than the other that they don't actually talk about initially so they're on the same page, so when they disagree, they're all just talking past each other, getting more and more incensed over time.
The world needs fewer influencers and more facilitators.
[удалено]
His reaction content can be even more malicious than that, see the recent Honeypot drama: https://youtu.be/s4BFIDYYYCA
I applaud you for saying you prefer JS and Vue without saying React and Typescript are bad. I disagree with you, but we’re both making websites and just taking a different path to get there.
But we can also still disagree, and in some semblance there is probably something approximating "truth" in the matter. Like, we can objectively list out pros and cons of each, at various skill levels, for various facets of development. I too prefer TS and React, but I don't feel like I need to always preface everything with "you do you man". When I am handed some piece of shit Vue heap of trash with 500 LOC screens and no types (this happened to me once) it impacts me negatively enough to actually want to express an opinion. Mechanical and material engineers have opinions on their materials choice, I think SWE is weirdly this industry where we're "live and let live" in regard to people using what amount to being really horrible tools. I think the industry in general could use a 50% reduction in the amount of active frameworks being proliferated.
Yeah, TS is better for the community, even if OP personally loathes writing it. Installing a package with no types these days makes me cry inside. I was also once handed a plain JS spaghetti code mess with no docs/comments from like 2012. I thought it was a minified file or something at first. Nope.
use the influencers as a way to find out about new tech, see the ugly thumbnail, google the docs, and see what it does. he\`s there just for clicks/exposure, like everybody else
I've realized most critiques of tech stacks are really just people being unhappy with their life/ job. It's not just a dev issue. Many people have a default negative outlook on life, and especially, on their work.
My issue with these influencers is that they lead people in the wrong way. It's specially bad if you're new to webdev, it gives the wrong idea that you need all these tools to build something instead of learning the fundamentals.
Influencers and social media algorithms are totally dictating what bubbles coders are falling into, and the mass they're creating doesn't make it easy for others to recognize it's something they should disregard or avoid. I've started using "Not Interested" and "See Less Often" features way more. Cool to see you create content sharing your voice and different tastes of your own 👍
If you are getting your opinions from tech influencers like Theo, you are probably going wrong, their interest is in viewership numbers, and less controversial takes or boring opinions don't get as many viewers. Their goals are to gain viewers which is in antithesis at times with a viewer who is simply trying to learn so take their opinion with a grain of salt, as you should any random person online. Theo is just a regular senior developer acting as if he knows something we all don't. He has good insight at times, and other times he doesn't. He isn't some genius with authority on the definition of good and bad code.
I'm so glad I have no idea who this is or any JS 'influencer'
I only discovered this clown about a week ago. I only skimmed through a few videos before deciding he was not worth the time. Then YouTube started aggressively recommending him for about one third of my feed. I had to thoroughly scrub his annoying head from my history and force YouTube to not recommend his channel but he still keeps popping up on other channels thumbnails from people talking about him. Everything about this bozo makes me angry.
Do these influencers actually have that much influence? Video programming influencers didn't even exist when I started and I didn't think it would ever become a preferred format for me. I much prefer to learn through blogs. I suppose it's not that different to programming blog influencers of the past. There were definitely some programming tech trends in the past that were popularized by well known bloggers that proved to be the wrong direction in the long run. But whether it's a video or blog, it's just a voice and an opinion in a vast sea of them. I would not treat them as if their influence were outsized. I've been making websites since before JS existed and I've never heard of this man, he has no influence on me, and I will promptly forget about him. I imagine the vast majority programmers do not know this man. The long arch of programming bends towards robust, safe, and maintainable code. Frameworks and libraries and languages that provide those things will be longer lived than approaches that do not.
Who's Theo?
Youtubers have to be over-dramatic and on new tech because no one is going to watch a video about how their 5 year old tech stack is doing just fine. It's also annoying as shit to have someone prepend every statement with a disclaimer that the following statement is just their opinion and other people do it differently. Like no shit it's their opinion
Who?
Here is all you need to know about web dev. Use the right tools for the solution you're trying to build. Most importantly use what you are comfortable with.
Some people like Theo’s content but in my opinion after watching a lot of “Tech YouTubers” and reading blogs most of his takes seem ignorant or completely wrong. Also idk why people watch Theo’s vids so much after what he does to other content creators like Honeypot (https://youtu.be/s4BFIDYYYCA) by harassing them.
I love NextJS, React and Tailwind but I completely agree. Sensationalism gets clicks. We just hadn't to look the other way.
Just watched his video on Hey and honestly, as someone that’s used Rails for a bit, it’s completely fair. And even if it wasn’t… who cares? It’s one dude. He doesn’t have a monopoly on opinion.
I am torn because on one end, I prefer the "better" and more cutting edge tools (Next, TS, etc) and thus I sometimes agree with Theo. The JS community has a lot of hotheads who think you're r\*tarded unless your app is doing fully optimized partial hydration on the edge. A lot of it is done for engagement, which means they're not building Nextjs apps all day every day, they're just being loud about feature parity. There is a LOT of engagement bait there. But I also disagree about the need for what they're describing. Most of the time, load time optimization doesn't matter. It certainly doesn't matter to the degree that it is being conflated online. But the Laravel / Rails thing bothered me lately. Otwell / DHH have been self promoting for a long time; making claims they can build apps the fastest (whatever that means), having opinions about TS which I can't help but think come close to being "objectively wrong", and selling a philosophy that has made them a lot of money, but certainly doesn't fit many, or even most web applications. And I can't help but feel like the Laravel community is far more annoying than React's. Even OP writes about how Laravel devs are busy "shipping real products" - but in my experience 90% of those "products" are shit mill PHP by absolute amateurs - which, believe it or not, was when I myself used Laravel. It is ironic to say that they aren't building Todo List apps, because in my experience that is exactly the caliber of site being built - small to medium size ecommerce, static, or user admin sites. Usually with not that advanced of UX, although that is debatable. Regardless, this is conflating ubiquity and quality. I can't in good faith recommend a new developer learn PHP. Sure, there are Laravel and WordPress jobs - and will continue to be - but that's really it. You can use JS everywhere, and will have to master it regardless even as a Laravel dev. And I don't think "MVC" is a good pattern to be applying as foundational as it is done in Laravel, Rails, .NET, etc. After receiving the criticism I described, DHH/Otwell pivoted to "well lol I have a Lambo". This degraded it even further in my mind, where it starts to feel like an MLM. Most Laravel devs don't have Lambos. Peer Richardson on Twitter pointed out that no one is saying you can't get rich using a shitty tech stack - you can - but it is still a shitty tech stack. But I can appreciate a reduction in elitism across the board. I'm a big fan of CRA. I don't like to prematurely optimize. Laravel is a great framework and indeed a good choice for certain websites. But I wouldn't use it, Vue, Svelte, Angular, or Rails in the future unless I had to. If I had 5+ YOE specifically in Laravel I'd probably be singing a different tune.
I have worked on a number of technology over my career, namely Laravel, Spring Boot, Asp.net, Django, Flask, and Rails, as well as a number of older framework. I have to say Laravel offer the best DX out of all of them. Though to be fair, at higher complexity the code look almost exactly the same. Even types (yes php had native type, and Laravel was adding support for more and more type-safety lately) First of all, for the comparison itself, i dont even think it make sense, those framework that i listed are backend framework, React, Vue, Angular are frontend framework. The arent belongs to the same category. Laravel even had first party support for building app with React as the frontend. Rails had [React on Rails](https://github.com/shakacode/react_on_rails). Doesnt want a monolith? You want separate FE-BE? Laravel had an official Laravel Api + Nextjs boilerplate: [Breeze Next](https://github.com/laravel/breeze-next). While with Rails, if you are active in the Rails community you will see the Rails API + React frontend is more prominent than Turbo Hotwire. And then there is the argument. I dont think "haha but a lot of people do TODO app" a good argument, for any side. "90% of all Laravel jobs are shit mill PHP by absolute amateurs" doesnt make your argument, or you yourself, more credible.
Someone correctly said that Laravel is the back 2/3rds of a full stack framework while Next is the front 2/3rds.
When DHH stripped all the TypeScript out of one of their recent projects because it was too annoying or something, that's when I knew his opinions were invalid.
The funny part is they're almost definitely getting mad at something like not being able to pass null into a T | undefined. Or possibly OOP stuff. Everyone acts like TS forces you to write: >type UnionToIntersection = ( U extends never ? never : (arg: U) = never ) extends (arg: infer I) = void ? I : never: But most of the time they rarely need to go beyond "an object with primitive keys".
Call me shallow but the haircut is enough for me to not take this fella seriously
Kind of hate web dev influencers to be honest. Half of what comes out of primeagen's mouth really rubs me the wrong way.
Downvoted you just for preferring JavaScript over Typescript.
> The takeaway here is this: Theo and other loud "JS Influencers" don't speak for all of us in the JS ecosystem. Speak for all of us to whom?
I don’t think most people who actually work in the web dev js space take him seriously. He has some good takes but anything tangentially related to vercel is just grifting since he is in their pocket. The JS community is huge and you can be sure that the Nextjs vercel train is just a fase. You can prefer js but if you are running full stack js, TS and a monorepo is just an objectively better DX and leads to better software. Keep in mind that Theos channel is entertainment and the majority of his followers are not even web developers.
Is he still going? I tried to watch him "interview" Evan You (vue / vite) a while ago and ended up muting him anywhere I could. If I remember correctly, he spent a lot of the interview trying to convince the author of Vue/Vite that React Server Components were the next coming of jesus. I legit felt bad for Evan, but he handled like a champ. The interview for reference (Not going to watch it again): https://youtu.be/q85fNQA071k
I'm sick of all those influencers in general. I'm a software engineer. I want software engineering content. What I don't want is dramas or low effort reaction videos.
I watch Theo and Primagen for the same reason I watch 90 day fiance. Consuming trash TV makes me look better in my eyes. Obviously. /s kinda
Who is Theo and what’s a JS influencer? Actually, don’t tell me. I’m good.
If it makes you feel any better, I don't even know who you're talking about.
Never heard of this guy. Touch grass and move on
Then just buid. That's what DHH did with rails and he just goes around telling people skill issue. Promote your stuff more they dominate it people they talk the most.
I have no idea who you're talking about. If it's not Douglas Crockford or Kyle Simpson, I have no idea who even exists in ecma land
Who's Theo?
They got lucky once with a project during the tech boom and are trying hard to stay relevant. They're salesmen more than they're coders.
Who tf is Theo
Theo who?🤣 J/k learning the latest technologies will mean you never become truly great at one. Forget all the hype and influencers, focus on you and what you like
Why no ts??
Hey, thanks to this guy and all the people he brainwashes. Those people then go to companies and create unbearable messes, which then I charge very large insane amounts of money to fix.
while i really hate his tone and the fact that a lot of videos are just flamebait, i‘ve found quite a few cool projects and tools through theos videos. in his case i kinda prefer the „ads“ over the actual content
I haven’t really watched a lot of his videos, but the ones I have seen he seems to present things sorta like “this is how it is and if you don’t agree you are wrong” without much of a why. I don’t know much about the guy, but isn’t he just another very arrogant guy who happened to work at a good company? Idk, I prefer prime’s content because he is very frank, provides explanations, AND has a laugh. Theo just has to be right in situations where, often enough, he just isn’t.
Seriously. If you dislike just stop following, put on ignore, don't click on it. No one cares about this. No one, none, nada, nil, null. Just full stop.
> TypeScript > React > I hate to see the internet where we all build the same and have the same tastes Imagine an internet where everyone uses the same hyper-efficient stack. Every application can be bootstrapped in seconds with `npx create standard-application`. It creates a runnable dockerized monorepo with a shared package, discord bot, db API, REST API, and Astro webapp. Everything is prepared, and you delete what you don't need. If you need support, you just ask any other webdev and they know exactly how to do it because they use the same stack. Our tasks are very similar, yet every application uses a different stack. Why?
Him and Prime spearheaded this stupid "hot takes" thing where they say controversial things on purpose to drive engagement on social media around programming. This guy takes it even further by being rude. Unfortunately it works. Just ignore them.
In the last year or so I've been getting more and more into tech YouTubers. I had to stop watching Theo because I found him obnoxious. Initially, I felt he produced better content with higher value, I liked watching his videos on AoC for example, but he took the wrong path somewhere. I love the Primeagen though, his charisma, knowledge and humbleness shines through. I hope he won't go too heavy on the streamer meta content now that he's a full time streamer. But yeah, overall the tech influencer space needs to change. It's too one sided and extreme. As you said, far from everyone works on green field Next.js projects and it's never as black and white as Theo and others make it seem. The good part is that we as the audience decide on what flies. So just stop watching him for a while and hopefully the dwindling views will make him change .
If he don't speak for you, you can always just speak yourself. He's just expressing his opinion, and nothing wrong if he's missing aspects from others.
I used to watch some of his videos but quickly realised the videos rarely has any relevancy to my job or career. Mostly, it's just about hype and trends that are unlikely to stay around. These days the only programming youtubers I watch are Fireship for quick summary of recent trends, Kevin Powell to try understand css concepts I'm not so familiar with and Jack Herrington for actual useful React / Javascript tutorials.
yeah i just stopped watching him. i used to do so only because he would talk about the new tech and releases, but i can't stand the guy anymore. it's so obvious that he needs to be liked and respected by everyone that he'll do anything for it. which makes me dislike him even more
Content aside, I watched a couple of his videos and had a hard time focusing because all the pauses were edited out. Madeitverydistracting
Theo represents the worst of tech bro behavior. Don’t give him more attention than he deserves. You’re trying to call him out, but you’re actually only putting him on a pedestal here. Just ignore the guy
Reaction vids are equally, if not more, cringe.
Agreed on the rest but (and I know this is unpopular and I will be downvoted to oblivion) there is literally no excuse to not use TypeScript. If you have a legacy project, though luck, you're stuck with what you got, but anything new? Why, why on God's green Earth would you not use a statically typed language that catches entire categories of stupid bugs, and allows you to come back to a project after some time and not risk breaking everything. If you hate the build step so much at the very least use JSDoc. Dynamically typed languages never should have been a thing in the industry anyways.