JavaScript is moving in two directions at once, favoring both comprehensive, full-stack frameworks and greater simplicity. Sometimes these trends are harmonious, and at other times they are at odds.

Among the JavaScript skills in decline, jQuery has fallen 30% since 2015, while Ajax is down even more -- 54%. Backbone.js has also seen its appearance in job postings drop significantly since 2014.

Facebook launched React VR today, an open source JavaScript framework for building VR experiences that was announced back in October. It’s based on React, which is the user interface code that ...