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Comment by jpeterson | Hacker News Reader

It seems like *.js framework is the new "Hello World".

No, no, those are todo list apps.

Besides, we're still in the first to second generation of js rich client frameworks. All this crazy amount of experimentation is great; it'll settle down more towards the fourth to fifth generation.

Ha! indeed, todo apps are the new hello world. Regarding the .JS frameworks, I actually think it's a good thing that many are being created, this grows the community and the need to solve problems in different ways, more ideas, feedback, etc. Check this review of the most popular MVC frameworks, http://goo.gl/2VhZX

I actually wrote a todo list app as an example (https://github.com/elabs/serenade_todomvc), I'm going to go hide now ;)

All these frameworks make me think of this XKCD:

http://xkcd.com/927/

I'd argue that we're in the third generation already.

I don't follow the js world super closely. What would you say were the first two (rich client/single page framework) gens?

I would cite early attempts at JS-generated views that I worked on in the late '90s/early '00s (and I assume other people were doing similar things at the time) and the various RIA frameworks that appeared on the scene circa '04-'05 spawned by Ajax that through no fault of their own tried to rediscover widget-based portal solutions in JS. See Flex, Laszlo and others. Also tried was XUL, all very limited and one-sided.

What we're seeing today is are mostly front-end MVC solutions that have a more populist approach towards platform and usability as those two have matured substantially due to the current global propagation of a certain genre of apps. I hate to admit it, but Facebook has done wonders in terms of providing feedback as to how much a user will tolerate beyond static HTML as well as educating the user to accept as standard certain classes of JS functionality as they iterate through implementations.

Ha! When I saw the headline I did think "MVC Frameworks are the new Todo List app". I knew someone would say something to that effect. :)

That said, the amount of effort in these frameworks is admirable and pushes ideas and best practices forward.

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