Sunday Ponitifications 2021 .1
Recently, I have noted a rather disturbing trend- software developers who have graduated after 2015, DO NOT seem to understand the languages they work with. Nor do they think there is any need to understand the language in any level of depth.
Most of them believe that the framework is the language or the main tool of their trade.
And hence, we have a ‘React Developer’ instead of a Javascript/Typescript developer who is proficient in React, of an ‘Angular developer” along the same lines. On the other side of the wire we have ‘Spring Boot Developers” instead of ‘Java Developers” who can work with Spring Boot., Struts or whatever other framework. Simlarly, we have people who are ‘Hiberate” specialists, with little ro knowledge of the undelying storage ( SQL, Mongo etc.).
One of the reasons is that hiring organiztions find a ‘ Spring Boot” developer more attractive than a ‘Java Developer” who is good are Spring boot, as it is believed (erroneously, IMO) that the former will be productive immediately. Since organizatons are more likely to hire a ‘Spring boot’ Developer than a ‘Java Developer” who can learn and work with any framework, it is a great incentive for young developers to focus only on the features of the framework, than the underlying language,and its intricacies.
A serious problem with this approach, is that when one builds large applications one is likely to run into memory leaks, framework level bugs, interoperatibility glitches, and other performance issues. To solve any of these, one needs a deep understanding of the not only the language, but it’s libraries, the internal working of frameworks such as Spring Boot (react, Angular, Vuew, or whichever new kid in town) , and the run-time environment.
The real danger, however, lies in the fact that this “framework” movement could lead to the same ideas that many organizations hold about DS and algorithms. “Why does one need to know Java or Javascript or Typescript when you know React, Angular, or Spring boot?”, might become the equivalent of “Why does one need to know DS and algorithms?”, in the near future.
What will happen when these kids get to positions where they start hiring people?
Shudder.
