The JavaScript Midlife Crisis
The JavaScript ecosystem is undergoing a transition as developers increasingly look toward faster, leaner alternative languages. Despite its ubiquity, the language faces challenges from modern toolchains that prioritize performance and efficiency.
Why it matters
JavaScript is the backbone of the modern web; shifts in its development ecosystem impact millions of developers and the performance of global web infrastructure.
Thirty years in, the JavaScript ecosystem would like to see other languages. They're younger, leaner and faster. What could possibly go wrong?
You could improve it, hide it, compile to it or complain about it. You just couldn't get rid of it.
A while back, I made a half-observation, half-joke on LinkedIn .
The great JavaScript toolchain rewrite barged in. The older tools that helped cement the language's place in our stacks became uncool, if not suspicious. Their sluggish performance took the blame for slowing down millions of lines of code on their way to production. It's increasingly difficult to keep track of the cool kids on the block. Their names might not be catchy, but their promise is captivating: speed, and a lot of it.
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