CircleJerk

After spending a week learning and experimenting "modern" JavaScript I think it's not worth the effort to use React.js and Webpack if I'm not making a full SPA. It's like alpha software with constant changes (I'm mainly talking about the ecosystem and its components). Documentation is also lacking, specially Webpack. Even tutorials from 3~6 months ago are somewhat outdated. Funny thing I learned Flux's basics and now they are already talking about Relay (ffs!)

Right now I have a tradicional (and huge) MVC back-end and an API (I'm not using Node.js). Assets = Gulp to concat+rev+uglify.

What would be the best approach to my pages where a lot of user interaction is needed? Using jQuery and handlebars seems ugly but I think I'll be overcomplicating things if I adopt an entire new stack (React, Babel JSX/ES6, Webpack, modules, hot-reload...) on top of what I already have.

I'm the single developer on this web app, I feel extremely productive on the back-end side but the front-end is driving me NUTS. Since it started making a good amount of money I quit my job a few months ago and it's my main income now.

I'm (literally) having nightmares about a JS bug I won't be able to solve since it's so many moving parts and I'm a back-end dev who doesn't have the time or patience to replace his entire front-end stack every 6 months.

I'm looking for a "Windows for Linux users" kinda of guide, any suggestions? I'm not talking about how to use the OS, but how to protect myself from it.

My new job "requires" that I move to Windows ASAP but I'm worried about all the cloud stuff. I'm waiting for the Windows 10 release to start the dual boot pain.

- Is there a "Microsoft Block" list for the hosts files for all the cloud, ads on MS apps (like Skype) and data collection stuff? That would still allow me to receive updates

- I hate everything about Antivirus software. Is there any lightweight solution? Any options besides UAC on max level to increase security?

- For shaddy .exe's, is there a battle tested sandbox solution or I'm gonna need a VM? Is it worth paying for Sandboxie?

- Windows Firewall: good enough?

Feel free to share your experiences about switching to Windows, security related or not.

Thanks!