FRAMEWORK WARS
The Digital Prospecting
… or Why my framework is better than your framework!
These days (or for the last 5–6 years) we are witnessing a plethora of new libraries/frameworks, especially in Front End (JavaScript) space. As someone who’s been involved in web development since the mid-90s, I can tell you firsthand that it’s just too much. Poor FE devs cannot see the proverbial “forest from the trees” (frameworks, libraries, etc).
The (Digital) Prospecting
Per definition by Wikipedia “Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking. Traditionally prospecting relied on direct observation of mineralization in rock outcrops or in sediments.”
So the saying “during a gold rush, sell shovels” is a metaphor that suggests that when you recognize a gold rush is happening, don’t try to be the 1,000,001st person to mine for gold, because you will probably fail. Instead sell something that all the millions of gold miners need, like shovels, and get rich from selling it to prospectors.
The Digital Prospecting is just the newest “gold rush”, whereas “the shovels” are the various “industries” that sprung around…
