Stop the Fanaticism!

About Me

• Engineering Evangelist at RetailMeNot
• Javascript developer (full-stack, robots)
• Austinite
• Opinionated Gif-addict

We have a fanaticism problem.

We're
Alienating
Developers.

Just a few examples.

• The Flight Talk/The Ember Guy
• The User Group Aficionado
• The JSConf Talk

We are arbitrarily preventing ourselves from writing the best software.

Fanaticism Symptoms

Twitter Arguments

Dismissive Behavior

Blanket/Universal Statements

"How is [X] like [My Favorite]?"

Their First Question:

Some Other Symptoms of Fanaticism

Nail-hammer syndrome

• Use this tool for all the things!
• ...even things maybe this tool wasn't made for.

Steep learning curves

• We build monolithic frameworks and libraries
• Time to First Hello World
• Leaving new devs in the dark!

Complete Dependence

• We buy in to the steep learning curve
• Learn how to do everything one way
• Maintainer disappears in a puff of Go-colored smoke

Library "Magic"

• Magic can be great!
• But sometimes you want something different
• Which leaves you fighting the magic

"Opinionated"

The funny thing is, I have opinions, too. And the more opinions a library or framework has, the less likely they'll match up with mine.

A note on Language Fanaticism

• To the coffeescript haters
• To the class/inheritance haters
• To the kids crying "Java!"

But how do we fix it?

Ask Yourself Questions

How is [x] like [my favorite]?

How is [x] going to make development easier/Better/Faster?

Other questions

• "Am I fully utilizing this?"
• "What are my pain points? Is this tool causing them?"
• "Does this tool work well with my other choices?"

New and shiny
Vs
It's not stable

Avoid Developer Status Quo

Try
New
Things

"But Kas, are you seriously saying I should

Never ever use a Framework?"

Use frameworks. But Be judicious.

"Is this framework helping, or giving me a gilded cage?"

How to live with your choices as a team

Write The API you need first

• What calls do you want?
• Do you want promises, coffeescript, whatever?
• Use this as a measuring tool

Abstraction Layers don't suck

• That API you wrote? Use it!
• If you need to change tools, change the connection
• Use when in doubt about stability.

Build a proof of concept

• Don't Just "Hello World" it.
• What are the pain points in your project? Test those!
• Build it with your team
• Worst case- you learned something.

Surprise! None of us know what we're doing.

So Let's learn from each other, instead of proclaiming how right we are.

Thanks for listening

Kassandra Perch

@nodebotanist

Engineering Evangelist, RetailMeNot