Based On A True Story

The stark reality of modern JavaScript development in one perfect image. Left side: your node_modules folder - a literal encyclopedia of dependencies that could crush a small desk. Right side: your actual source code - so tiny you could lose it between your fingers. The 500MB of libraries you imported just to center a div versus the 12 lines of code you actually wrote. This is why your Docker builds take longer than compiling the Linux kernel.

Frontend devs rejecting Tailwind's utility-first approach only to embrace the chaos of a 10,000-line CSS file that not even its creator understands anymore. Nothing says "I'm a serious developer" like spending three hours hunting down which selector is overriding your button styles. The irony? They'll still complain about "div soup" while their stylesheet resembles the complete works of Shakespeare – if Shakespeare had a nervous breakdown and typed with his elbows.

OH. MY. GOD. The absolute AUDACITY of tech recruiters expecting you to be a full-stack developer, DevOps engineer, database administrator, AND UX designer all rolled into one mythical unicorn creature! 🦄 They're out here posting job listings that require you to master 17 different technologies spanning from backend databases to frontend frameworks, PLUS Kubernetes orchestration, with 10+ years experience in a framework that was released 3 years ago! And all for the generous salary of "competitive" (read: barely covers your coffee addiction). The brutal truth? They have NO IDEA what these technologies actually do or how they relate. They just copy-paste buzzwords from other job listings and call it a day. Honey, Postgres and React are not interchangeable skills - they're from completely different UNIVERSES! 💅

The JavaScript framework mining operation is in full swing. Above ground, we've got the established frameworks (TANSTACK, React, Svelte) sitting pretty on a diamond field, while Next.js is being frantically mined below by some poor developer. Meanwhile, Angular and Vue are just waiting their turn in the endless cycle of framework hype. Frontend developers are basically digital prospectors at this point. "This framework will be the one that makes me rich with efficient code!" Sure, buddy. Just like the last five you tried.

The ultimate hipster programmer manifesto has arrived! At the top, we have the "Reject modernity" squad featuring React, Tailwind, Vue, some hipster hamster, and TypeScript—basically everything recruiters won't stop messaging you about on LinkedIn. Meanwhile, the "Embrace tradition" crew is just chilling below with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and Python—you know, the technologies that actually keep the internet from imploding. It's like choosing between a complicated pour-over coffee ritual versus just drinking the office coffee that somehow still works. Sure, the modern frameworks look impressive on your resume, but when the apocalypse comes, who do you think will still be able to make a website work? The person who can write vanilla JS or the one who needs 37 dependencies just to center a div?

Remember when the web was just static HTML? Those were simpler times. Now we're over here connecting Redux thunks to Suspense while our node_modules folder consumes half our hard drive space. JavaScript started as a tiny language to make form validation less painful, but somehow evolved into this monster where your shopping cart app needs 807 dependencies just to render "undefined apples please" to the screen. The best part? We've collectively convinced ourselves this is normal. Meanwhile, Flash—problematic as it was—is dead, but we've replaced it with an ecosystem so complex that half the developers using it don't understand what's happening under the hood. But hey, at least we can run JavaScript everywhere now. Even places it absolutely shouldn't be.