It's Always Year Zero

The view on technology often follows a compressed version of the "Laver's Law":

• Everything I had previously contacted was completely outdated.
• Everything that I showed up afterwards was completely unnecessary.
• Everything I use now is perfect; don't change it.

We tend to judge things based on our starting point, that is, the individual's "first year". But our "first year" is not the "first year" of others. Over time, good ideas will eventually win, and in hindsight, they are obvious.

In 2020, I realized that in the field of website construction, it will always be the "first year".

In The Third Era of JavaScript, I speculated on a new wave of web development tools, thanks to the convergence of multiple trends:

• The end of the “Era of JavaScript Tools Written in JavaScript” (and the rise of TypeScript/Rust/Go)
• Simplification of tool layer
• New isomorphic JavaScript (Easy to move JavaScript between client/server/build environment)
• ES modules are everywhere
• Internet Explorer 11 Slow and long life cycle ends

Under this framework, 2020 is the first year of the third era. But what about 2021 and 2022? What makes me so sure that 2020 is a clear watershed?

There is nothing. There is always room for innovation. New libraries, new frameworks, new construction tools, and even new languages ​​are emerging one after another. Yes, most of them will be short-lived, and yes, we swing back and forth a lot. But it is those who believe that web development is not yet completed that creates the future. Not those commentators who sit on the sidelines to give advice, nor those who have negative opinions about everything. I would rather stand on the side of those who believe that the "first year" will last forever than those who believe that the "first year" has passed.

For me, the “first year” also means maintaining a beginner’s mindset and constantly reexamining what I think I know. When I first learned about web development, I was told that React is the best framework for building websites, phenotype components and container components are the right way to use React, and BEM is the right way to build CSS. As a newbie to the "first year", I think any discomfort with the orthodox approach is my fault. Fast forward to this year, and my most popular articles are about Svelte and Tailwind, questioning this traditional notion. No one allowed me to do this. It took me years to understand that I could boldly question my mentor and allow myself to do so.

I especially feel this for newcomers in our industry. There are about ~350,000 freeCodeCamp graduates, ~100,000 college graduates and ~35,000 training camp graduates each year. For them, this is the "first year". Or consider our end users—millions of non-developers, who have more lives each year consumed by the wrong and slow software we make? For them, this is the "first year".

In the broader trajectory of human history, web development is also the "first year". The web is only 30 years old. We have spent more than 300 years perfecting modern physics, but there are still things we know we don’t know. Web development was very early.

Let us stop pretending that what we know is the absolute truth, and that all we have is the final state of things. It will always be the "first year".

The above is the detailed content of It's Always Year Zero. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!