alas, the chances of getting work somewhere without being proficient in angular/react/ember/backbone is the reality.
Learn and use blaze if:
I get your point, but I wouldnāt call being proficient at Blaze worthless. Being able to describe and demonstrate a solid understanding of Blaze in an interview means:
Iāve been on the hiring side of the table many times; I can tell you without a doubt some of the best hires Iāve made were developers who had zero experience with our toolset, but could demonstrate and articulate their experiences in other areas. Being able to demonstrate past success stories, coupled with the ability/willingness to learn, is what really matters to good companies.
With that attitude and outlook it certainly is. Donāt give the template engine the credit for your skills and work.
+10. The OP appears to have limited knowledge of how the mind of a fundamentally good coder works. He might be better off getting a MSCP or some other fancy paper instead of keep posting negative things around here 
This is a EXTREMELY silly statementā¦
Especially considering you specifically mentioned Ember. Ember uses Handlebars, and Blaze is basically handlebars built for Meteors reactivity.
Besides, itās highly unlikely that candidates will be determined by view layer alone. Most view layers are actually pretty basic, and along the lines of Blaze. Special cases may be made for extremely large Angular or React projects, but if you are being hired for a specialty your prospects are a niche market anywayā¦
I love blaze and I agree with everything people here have said. But you will not find a job ad with blaze in it. 99.9% ask that you are familiar with angular/react/ember and surprisingly, backbone.
Again, I get that view layers are give or take the same thing. I get the concepts are useful elsewhere. But Iām not seeing this translate into real life.
Ember = handlebars which basically = Blaze. If you see a job listing with Ember in it, thatās basically a job ad with Blaze in it.
Thereās no difference really, and Blaze actually has more complex functionality (especially if you use some of the packages for it).
You do realize, templating engines are actually usually pretty limited and need work-arounds for advanced functionality. If you can demonstrate that you achieved advanced functionality within these limitations, that likely means more than a user who could achieve the same in more advanced view layers.
When I first got in to developing business software/database management, I had absolutely no past history of business software. My prior software design experience at the time was 100% in the field of game development! But I was able to express that I had all the skills required for the job, and that I could do everything the owner/manager wanted.
Your previous format does not matter as much as if you can demonstrate what you can achieve with the tools you had. And itās even more impressive if you achieved great things with inferior tools.
Besides, things like React have only became mainstream within the last year. Not many people have a large resume with React on it yet. They simply have to express that they know React NOW, rather than having to show a history of React. A prior history of any impressive software will earn you points regardless of the format used - and inferior formats may be a true benefit in disguise.
Iāve done about 6k this year in Blazeā¦ and so far $250 in React tutorials. No companies wanted to go React route it scared their inhouse devsā¦
It was about 10 years ago when I scored the largest custom software development and integration contract ever for my company.
The deal involved development and deployment of an SAP integrated BPMN solution, all over the world, for a multinational pharma company. 2 year development contract + maintenance extensions. Huge deal!
There were some very clear requirements regarding SAP integration expertise, involving multiple modules.
Up until that point we had done small integrations, involving only few of the required modules. The competition thought we were a joke, even one of the decision makers said that to my face, asking how dare I even want to make a propsal.
At that point we asked for a 15 minute technical presentation where we listed other, completely unrelated 3rd party integrations that we had delivered without prior experience, and then told them that we were engineers at heart and fast learners and that we enjoyed the challenges as long as they would also be willing to work with us in at least nudging us in the correct directions, and then we confidently explained what mattered would be the fundamentals of software integration, not the specific api endpoints and formats, and that we were the best they would get since we knew those fundamentals by heart.
2 years down the road, we received nothing but recognition and praises from all over the world, including that guy mocking us in the beginning.
So @a.com believe me when I say āthe ability to learn blazeā is what translates into real life and it does so much much much more than āknowing angular/react/ember/backboneā ever can. Because a year from now, something new will have come along, sweeping all those stacks and that hiring manager will want to have been working with people who are willing and able to learn and adapt.
honestly, I feel like blaze components (even without the package) are amazing.
You can nest them with handlebars.
You have onCreated and onRendered if you need them.
You have reactive vars, dict and session variables
And the concept of helpers or events is just so simple and intuitive. If Iām looking for an event in my template, I know exactly where to look (the event block of the componentās js file). If Iām wondering about the data being fed in, I know exactly where to lookā¦ compare that to the maze of data and events in a react component.
The syntax is the most readable everā¦
'click #thisId': [insert the function you need to fire.]
Maybe I just havenāt used react enough yet, but it just seems like so many odd intricacies to learn. The only upside is you donāt have to jump from a js file to an html fileā¦ which isnāt really the end of the world with a blaze component structureā¦ Iāve yet to look into flux/redux whatever none-deprecated flavor of the monthā¦ but I canāt help but think āI could do this with a session or reactiveVar in 30 secondsā¦ why am I reading a textbook on redux right nowā.
Iām not saying blaze sucks, or that knowing it is useless, or that you canāt make money off of blaze knowledge. But I think that if youāre going to know one view layer and one view layer only, blaze is not the one. Whereas if you know angular inside and out, thereās a untold number of $120k+ jobs abound.
Use ViewModel with Blaze, and bam - you have the best features of Angular w/ the simplicity of handlebars/blaze at your fingertips.
If you are only going to know one, use the one that is best suited for your project.
But if you really want to be marketable, shouldnāt you be familiar with the basics of the primary competitors anyway? Then feel free to use which ever you like.
Are you still on the SAP world if not, why? How / when did you get attracted to Meteor and the JS ecosystem? That would be interesting to know 
@ackzell apart from the occasional jquery and ajax spaghetti my introduction to javascript happened in fact with meteor. It was about 4 years ago, we were a javaee shop, but I had been doing more client management then coding and having been an engineer entangled in business, I was almost depressed about it, considered my options and decided to shut the company down and begin a freelance career in consulting and hopefully programming. Meteor was a treat to work with and certainly encouraged me on this path.
It took about 2 years to shut the company, though. Contracts needed to be fullfilled, there were great people who had been working for us for 10 years so they would have to be transitioned into new jobs and not suddenly be left unemployed etc.
And no I have not done any SAP work after that. I love everything about startups and I have a soft spot for entrepreneurs so my clients have been startups everysince. So thereās not much āenterprise integrationā requirements there. I still get some occasional calls from old clients, but frankly, Iām tired of 90%meeting-10%work schedules so I turn them down. I truly enjoy coding with Meteor and javascript in general.
And if you are considering meteor/node/javascript for enterprise work, sap and whatnot, I believe it is a very viable technology option that can far transcend existing wide-spread technologies if its often unusual (to enterprise developers) traits are embraced and leveraged.
Try whipping up a web service client in java - one that you will be 100% sure can be deployed as is (classloader problems ring a bell?) - and then try the same with meteor Meteor version will be done and deployed by the time youāre merely half way through setting up your maven dependencies
Rather than just being good software engineers it sounds like you and the people you work with are also good salesmen.
edit: btw, this is a compliment, its awesome that you can sell your value.
Thanks @cstrat
I have always been lucky that I got to work with talented people. It was then my company, and now it is the good company of this community! Come to think of it, there is not a single technical problem I canāt solve when I seek help on the forum! The diversity and size of the accumulative knowledge here is incomprehensible!
And for sales, (and job-seeking alike) I think it is all about being honest, patient and faithful. The right oppotunities have a way of coming in oneās way
@a.com and everyone else,
Personally, I think itās a branding problem. We have now become focused on āprojectā brands (Angular, Rect, Laravel etc.). We should just call it Handlebars (for Meteor) ā¦ then the problem is lessened to a larger extent. Blaze is Handlebars plus reactivity.
Or we can call it Reactive Handlebars.
Point is, we donāt have to stick to the original brand MDG came up with a long time ago, in different circumstances with different needs for the market at the time.
Exactly. And Handlebars is used by so many different frameworks/platforms out there in one way or the other.
Yeah it is. I think at this point there isnāt much you can do to improve the branding. Angular/React will probably be the leaders for the foreseeable future, they have a huge community and capital resources behind them. Itās unlikely an open source part-time project will be able to keep up.
Yes, there are vue, blaze and others. Yes, everyone is use to churn in the JS world, so we expect something new will come with everything. But that doesnāt apply to everything. Look at jQueryā¦ it was never really un-seated by another option. It was just never feasible for a jQuery competitor to catch up and āunseatā them. Certain libraries/frameworks just get a lot of momentum. I think angular and react have that same level of jQuery-esque momentum.
It will be tough to unseat themā¦ there will still be the vue and blazes of the world thoughā¦ but theyāll be very niche Iād think.
Blaze is great if you get to choose the stack youāre working with or your company uses it. My point was more for those out in the wild looking for a job. Philosophically, hypothetically, knowing blaze isnāt a negative. But if itās your resume saying you only know blaze vs the other guy who only knows only knows angular, (all else being equal) youāre probably out of luck.
@a.com,
Agreed - the job market is more likely to ask for freelancers to be part of larger projects using technology designed for that purpose. Especially React is suitable for larger teams as it enhances compartmentalization.
Personally, I believe Handlebars / Spacebars / Blaze are more suitable for smaller projects with smaller teams, where the emphasis is on speed and performance of the team. Being so close to the DOM encourages quick turn around.
Case in point, Handlebars powers Ghost, Nodeās premier Blogging engine (which we LOVE, forget Wordpress and Drupal). Themes are designed by one-man shops. So the future of anything that is related to Handlebars will be closer to startups / small projects. Which is where Meteor originally thrived but MDG is trying to take it away to bigger corporate teams.
My concern is the future of Blaze, looking forward to the community taking over. If we need to, we can switch to React later. I am also concerned for the future of Meteor. Apollo is the new flavor, whatās next?
I believe @a.com is talking about the development projects as a freelancer or as an Agency and in this case - he has to learn react or angular. If heāll stay only with blaze - it will be an issue for you to get more projects.