Last year, I posted “Six things I want to see in JavaScript and Frontend development in 2023”. It’s been just over one year since that post and I thought it’d be fun to do a quick recap and grade each one.

Unfortunately, I have to give us all overall GPA 1.0 due to way too many failures.

1. Usage of Axios declines or goes EOL

   Grade: F

   I am sorely disappointed. What I’ve learned from working with various teams is that Axios tends to be what people use when they’re uninformed, not up to date with standards, and just copying examples from the Internet.

2. Successful use of the Node.js Test Runner

   Grade: D

   I haven’t really seen anyone pick this up in a full context yet. I would still love to see this happen. I did actually think about it, but there’s still too much complexity when you’re writing TypeScript and have other complex needs.

3. Less divisive stances on CSS solutions

   Grade: F

   Nope. Everyone is still an armchair expert that will tell you whatever you’re using is terrible and you should use their favorite solution instead.

4. Less venture capital backed open source

   Grade: C

   I honestly don’t know. Maybe that’s a good thing. I haven’t seen a lot of new big open source stuff popping up with VC funding, but I have heard of a lot of startups getting going.

5. Decline of weak Eslint rules and configs

   Grade: B

   We’re getting there! A few projects like Biome and Oxlint are even making alternatives to ESLint without all the fluff that are nearly hundreds of times faster.

   ESLint itself is deprecating formatting rules in favor of allowing a proper formatter to do them for you.

   Overall, things are better, but we’re not quite there yet.

6. React either gets it’s crap together or gets out of the way

   Grade: F

   Nope. React is worse than ever and continually seen as a frustration point.

Oh well, we failed miserably – but there are some things to look forward to yet.