Evan You’s Vue.js

Evan You’s Vue.js

A summary of Klint Finley's Wired article "The Solo JavaScript Developer Challenging Google and Facebook"

Evan You worked at Google’s Creative Lab for two and a half years, where among the many things he learned, he picked up AngularJS. AngularJS is Google’s JavaScript front-end web application framework. It is the second most downloaded JavaScript framework after Facebook’s React according to a 2017 npm "State of JavaScript Frameworks" report.

JavaScript runs code primarily in your browser rather than the company’s server and Facebook and Google have built complex browser-based programs with it including Gmail, Google Docs, and Facebook itself.

You picked up some of the features he liked best, and started making his own lightweight version of JS called Vue. You says, "It started out as an experimental little library to solve problems I encountered in my work."

You left Google in 2014, where after he joined Meteor, a startup that was working to build a framework that used JavaScript for both the browser and server sides of an application. He continued to work on Vue on the side during this time. Then he decided to work on it full time in 2016.

Vue had caught the eye of Jinjiang Zhao, a developer at China e-commerce giant Alibaba. Zhao become a strong and vocal advocate for You. He adopted Vue and encouraged his Alibaba colleagues to use Vue in their projects. Zhao used Vue on small internal projects when he could. He also helped translate the documentation into Chinese. Zhao wrote blog posts in Chinese that helped Vue attract the attention of the Chinese JavaScript community.

You got his big break with Vue when the team behind the Lavarel framework offered its official support for Vue. That made Vue visible to thousands of developers using Laravel, a PHP framework. Zhao continued to convert more of his colleagues at Alibaba to the framework, which then spread to other companies.

Vue has been used by Adobe, Baidu, Alibaba, Netflix, Nintendo, and Tencent. As it is open source, You makes some money from the project via consulting, private training sessions, selling ads on the documentation, and donations. Taylor Otwell of Lavarel has offered to help sponsor the project adding, “I was using it for many projects and felt that it deserved to be a paid product.” At end of 2017, Vue was tied with Ember.js for the third most-downloaded JavaScript framework, coming up under Facebook’s React and Google’s AngularJS.

According to Taylor Otwell, Vue is lightweight, simple, and buildable. It has a core foundation that is easy for developers to learn and more advanced features can be added on top. It is easy to get started and grows with your skills as you develop. You’s Twitter page has more of Vue’s recent updates, including the release of Vue CLI 3.0. His Vue.js Github page is here. Wired’s author praises “You has already proven that independent software can still find a place in the era of internet giants.”