React isn’t good at anything, except being popular. That’s a bold statement, but it’s one that Josh Collinsworth stands by. It seems like nearly every major tech company has React in their stack. But why is a framework built specifically for Facebook so popular in the general developer community?
Josh Collinsworth, Senior Front End Developer at Shopify, wrote an article titled “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of React”. Even though Shopify uses React, Josh didn’t hold back his views on the framework. When React came about, it solved a major problem for Facebook. Since then, it’s been viewed as a solution to every problem and the tech community has been stuck in a loop of teaching React and hiring React developers. But for Josh, React isn’t a solution, it’s just a tool, and it’s not the best out there.
In this episode, Josh talks to Chuck and Robbie about his viral article critiquing React’s popularity, his favorite fonts, and what it’s like juggling fatherhood with side projects. 

Key Takeaways

[00:30] - An intro to Josh Collinsworth.

[03:46] - A whiskey review - Wolves Whiskey X Willet Distillery The Rye Project Volume One Batch Two.

[13:00] - Why Josh thinks React’s popularity is just a self-sustaining cycle.

[39:03] - Josh’s favorite fonts.

[45:00] - Josh speaks about how he maintains his hobbies being a father.

[53:34] - How Spotify acquiring Remix has affected Josh.


Quotes
[14:04] - “If you look at the reasons you might actually pick a framework, React doesn't really tend to come out on top in any of those given categories.” ~ Josh Collinsworth
[19:51] - “I think a lot of people don't realize that it hasn't aged that well. It has kind of held itself back in some ways, and the tools that we do now have offer us some advantages that React maybe can't.” ~ Josh Collinsworth
[33:21] - “We're churning boot camp grads out with what we consider the minimum viable knowledge, and in this environment, that's React, and probably extremely little HTML and CSS.” ~ Josh Collinsworth

Links

Josh Collinsworth

React

Shopify

CSS Tricks Complete Beginner's Guide to NPM

Hacker News

Remix

Digital Ocean

Svelte Kit

Astro

Solid JS

Wolves Whiskey

Willett Family Estate

Harley

Sons of Anarchy

The Self-fulfilling Prophecy of React

Facebook

Ember

Webpack

Guillermo

Vercel

Polymer

Vue

Google

Gap

Nullvox

Brew

Max Howell

Preact

RightFont

VS Code

MonoLisa.dev

Slack

90-Day Fiance

Love Island

Pwabuilder.com

Xcode

Electron

Dun and Bradstreet

Linux Snap

Apple

Ubuntu

Stack Overflow

Hydrogen


Connect with our hosts

Robbie Wagner

Chuck Carpenter

Ship Shape


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