Time to change

In year 2012, when I joined Moxtra to work on Front-end Web app, I didn't know anything about Javascript, CSS or HTML5. I was using Java/J2EE while in Cisco. At that time, I googled a lot and made the following choice for Moxtra web app architecture in a short period of time.

• Javascript Framework/Lib: Backbone (http://backbonejs.org/) and (http://jquery.com/)
• CSS Framework: Bootstrap (upgraded from v2 to v3) (http://getbootstrap.com/)
• CSS Preprocessor: LESS (2 years later changed to SASS) http://sass-lang.com/guide
• Template: (underscore built-in, then changed to http://handlebarsjs.com/)
• Module loader: AMD/Requirejs (http://www.requirejs.org/)
• Chart/Draw:  d3 (https://d3js.org/)
• Build tool: grunt (http://gruntjs.com/)
• Package manager: NPM (https://www.npmjs.com/)
• IDE: Sublime Text 2 (http://www.sublimetext.com/2)
• Javascript: Vanilla JS/ES5 (http://es5.github.io/)
• Static code analysis tool: jshint (http://jshint.com/)
• Testing tool: qunit then behavior-driven javascript Jasmine (https://jasmine.github.io/)

When look back, the selections were ok at that time. However, Web front-end evolved rapidly every few months, and in past 4.5 years, there are many new ideas, frameworks, libraries, and tools created for the community while major browsers are upgraded in a rapid pace to fully supporting ES5 and partially supporting ES6. (http://caniuse.com/)

Today I read a blog https://risingstars2016.js.org/ which listed popular front-end projects/libraries in 2016. I am totally terrified to see so many new things happening.

Popular lib/frameworks
Node.js Frameworks -> Express, Sails, Loopback, Restify
React Boilerplates -> Create React App, React boilerplate
Mobile -> React Native
Transpilers -> TypeScript, Babel
Build Tools -> Webpack, Gulp
Testing Framework -> AVA, Jest
SSG (Static Site Generators) -> Hexo, Gatsby

Most popular projects on Github
Vue.js
React
Yarn
Angular 2
Electron
Create React App
React Native
Redux
Boostrap
D3

Time to change:
ES5 -> ES6
Backbone -> Vue.js/React
Requirejs -> Webpack
Grunt -> Gulp/Webpack
Sublime -> Atom/Visual Studio Code
Mocha/Jasmine -> AVA/Jest
NPM -> Yarn