Hot take: pros and cons vs the alternatives [v4]

Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing. There is a lot of conflicting advice online and most of it is from 2019.

This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks. Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have. This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks.

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts.