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David Heinemeier Hansson

What David Heinemeier Hansson thinks about JavaScript

@dhh · 154 positions · 10 changes of mind

Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

David Heinemeier Hansson did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

4 dated positions, 2021 to 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what David Heinemeier Hansson has said — not written or endorsed by them.

4 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our reading · no longer heldThe Rails doctrine's 'progress over stability' is the one point that dated: churn is not progress, and stability turned out to be worth more.

    Recalls holdingI used to think it required more churn to get progress to stay on the leading edge of new stuff. And I wrote this before I experienced the indignity of the 2010s in the JavaScript community.

    SaidAnd if I was gonna write the doctrine today, I'd write that differently. I wouldn't say progress over stability.

    ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 18th of 36 in this recording

  2. 10 months earlier

  3. Our readingNo-build JavaScript works in production and caches better: one bundle turns over every time a semicolon changes, while small separate files live forever.

    Their wordsyou have all these little files that get to live forever because the vast majority of your code does does not churn all the time when you have one bundle the entire bundle turns over every single time you change a goddamn semicolon anywhere right that's not great for caching Dynamics

    ↗DHH Is Right About Everythingyoutube.com 5th of 8 in this recording

  4. 12 months earlier

  5. Our readingTypeScript's type annotations cost more in friction than they return in safety, and a front-end framework is better off written in plain JavaScript.

    Their wordsTypeScript just gets in the way of that for me. Not just because it requires an explicit compile step, but because it pollutes the code with type gymnastics that add ever so little joy to my development experience, and quite frequently considerable grief.

    ↗Turbo 8 is dropping TypeScriptworld.hey.com

    TypeScript

  6. 2 years earlier

  7. Our reading · no longer heldThe complexity of a JavaScript bundling and transpiling toolchain is a bargain worth making, and the right default for building web applications.

    Recalls holdingFive years later, the facts on the ground have finally changed. I no longer believe that this bargain is worth it for most new applications.

    SaidFive years later, the facts on the ground have finally changed. I no longer believe that this bargain is worth it for most new applications.

    ↗Modern web apps without JavaScript bundling or transpilingworld.hey.com