There’s a widespread meme, where it’s “cool” to dismiss new technologies in our field as fads. There’s a sort of holier-than-though feeling, as though if you are learning React, you are wasting your time — you could do anything you can do with React, with Backbone.
But, here’s two points to think about —
1) If it’s true with the latest technology, it’s also true with your technology. Instead of using Backbone, you could just use html sprinkled with some jQuery. Now you won’t do that because Backbone gives you the mental tools that just aren’t existent in sprinkled jQuery. If someone just uses html and jQuery, they will never know what their missing, because it has worked great for them so far..
2) It’s also interesting to notice that this isn’t happening outside of tech hubs — nobody talks about the latest and greatest in Albuquerque. One thing that can infer from this is that tools are usually changing at the forefront of technology, and they’re not changing for no reason.