I think you make some very good points. Focusing on a particular toolchain because it's popular rather than the benefits it provides in development and the result is misguided. When developers first start out there are a lot of choices to make, and they may not have the foundation or experience to make the decision they would likely make a few years down the road. Often you're happy when you get something working and repeatedly so.
In the JavaScript community there's been an explosion of tools, tool chains, libraries, module systems; without a lot of experience, it's very easy to be overwhelmed. Criteria for choice can include the availability of easy-to-understand tutorials as much as understanding the motivations and design decisions and limitations of the tools themselves. Some people are very good at writing blog posts describing what they've done, better than conveying the underlying concepts. I don't want to necessarily fault them for that, as I think there's often a sincere desire to show people a way that works for them.
Rather than focussing solely on what's wrong, it's very important to also include options you think are better, and why. Looking down your nose at others, describing them as js hipsters using politically correct tools does no one any good, and makes it even less likely people will listen to what you have to say. And on HN, expressing the expectation of down votes is a guaranteed method of receiving them; it's against the guidelines and adds nothing to your comment.
There are a lot of choices in the web development space today. The desire to standardize on something (such as the push for Babel and Webpack) is laudable in that they recognize that so much choice is not necessarily good: it makes it more difficult to decide what to use (sometimes good enough is just that), and splits resources that may otherwise be used to improve a more limited number of options. That's not to say Babel and Webpack are the best options: just that I understand the motivation for standardization and push to popularize a few (rather than all) options.
In the JavaScript community there's been an explosion of tools, tool chains, libraries, module systems; without a lot of experience, it's very easy to be overwhelmed. Criteria for choice can include the availability of easy-to-understand tutorials as much as understanding the motivations and design decisions and limitations of the tools themselves. Some people are very good at writing blog posts describing what they've done, better than conveying the underlying concepts. I don't want to necessarily fault them for that, as I think there's often a sincere desire to show people a way that works for them.
Rather than focussing solely on what's wrong, it's very important to also include options you think are better, and why. Looking down your nose at others, describing them as js hipsters using politically correct tools does no one any good, and makes it even less likely people will listen to what you have to say. And on HN, expressing the expectation of down votes is a guaranteed method of receiving them; it's against the guidelines and adds nothing to your comment.
There are a lot of choices in the web development space today. The desire to standardize on something (such as the push for Babel and Webpack) is laudable in that they recognize that so much choice is not necessarily good: it makes it more difficult to decide what to use (sometimes good enough is just that), and splits resources that may otherwise be used to improve a more limited number of options. That's not to say Babel and Webpack are the best options: just that I understand the motivation for standardization and push to popularize a few (rather than all) options.