I'm going to admit, I didn't finish the article. So, I apologize if my point is useless. I've done plenty of web development before Angular/backbone etc. The productivity that I've experienced after becoming proficient in these frameworks more then makes up for any debugging issues. My other experience is that though sometimes it may take a tediously long time to figure something out, once you get it working... it just works.
Seriously, using knockout js recently. I completed a project, and all its mile stones in 2 weeks. We had 6 months planned. I completed the whole project in 2 weeks. When I was done, there were NO bugs under priority 4. In the 7 years of development before that, I have never experienced such a pleasant development cycle. I'd kill someone if they ever took this new tool away from me.
I think you missed the point of the article, you should've read it all.
The author doesn't say JS frameworks aren't productive. He said that developers should also learn software architecture. It's a good advice imo.
Seriously, using knockout js recently. I completed a project, and all its mile stones in 2 weeks. We had 6 months planned. I completed the whole project in 2 weeks. When I was done, there were NO bugs under priority 4. In the 7 years of development before that, I have never experienced such a pleasant development cycle. I'd kill someone if they ever took this new tool away from me.