There’s a special kind of dysfunction in tech that thrives just under the surface: framework tribalism.
We dress it up as preference, but it’s closer to identity. Developers don’t just use React, Svelte, or Vue — they pledge allegiance. They write Medium posts like manifestos. They argue on Twitter like it’s a blood sport.
What starts as a technical choice metastasizes into a belief system.
And that’s not just annoying. It’s dangerous.
Tools Aren’t Tribes
When tools become tribes, we lose our ability to think clearly. We stop asking useful questions like:
- Is this still the right tool for this job?
- Are we optimizing for developer experience or user experience?
- What’s the long-term cost of sticking with this ecosystem?
Instead, we treat critique as threat. We fall into sunk-cost rationalization. We cling to complexity because “that’s how it’s done in X.”
Framework tribalism rewards loyalty, not clarity. And misplaced loyalty in software is expensive.
It leads to bloated bundles, fragile abstractions, dogmatic workflows — and teams that conflate tool familiarity with technical direction. You get three megabytes of JavaScript to render a to-do list. You get engineers debating signals vs hooks while the user experience lags and breaks.
This Isn’t a Dig at Frameworks
This is a dig at us.
At the culture that forgets frameworks are tools — not religions.
Because here’s the truth: the incentives want you tribal.
- Frameworks want lock-in.
- Influencers want followers.
- Companies want ecosystems.
And you get status by picking a side and shouting louder.
But the louder you shout, the less you think.
What Great Engineers Actually Do
Great engineers don’t marry their stack. They wield it like a scalpel: precisely, pragmaticall