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Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

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Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#171

Post by segmondy »

fsloth wrote: post #153
segmondy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I beg to differ, web programming 10 years ago was a nightmare. It's much better today. It's not web programming that sucks, it's programming with others. I bet most people won't complain much if they got choose what tools they wanted and worked alone. When working with others, different ideas and opinion clash heavily. Programmers are not best known for their awesome communication and the lack of it lea…

"it's not web programming that sucks, it's programming with others." Most non-trivial systems require several contributors. 'Professional' means among other things being able to work with others. "When working with others, different ideas and opinion clash heavily." Sounds like herding cats. Any complex system should have a technical lead/architect who actually has the authority to say which technologies will be used…

... and this is the problem. when you are using a library from github, you are programming with others. when they break those libraries, they are breaking your application, any bug in it creeps into your application, if the interface is poorly designed, your code will be hackish to get around it, if it's a pain to setup and configure, you have to deal with it. most programmers today are programming with others, and there's no technical lead. you grab 5 different packages, they all have different styles. In the javascript world people sometimes end up with libraries clashing over each other. This is what I mean by programming with others. :) There is no one authority in the internet. We got that with Linux, OpenBSD, Python, and Ruby and people cry so much about those "dictators"

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#172

Post by nallerooth »

The web itself as we know it, was born from a bunch of hacks clobbered together by people who thought that the most important part of development was to "ship code". Features like images in browsers, or JavaScript, were designed and implemented in very short amounts of time and then all the cool features were copied by other browsers. With such a foundation, I think we can establish that modern web development indeed is a "hacks on hacks" thing.

A lot of people still believe that software development is all about "shipping code". And since many developers work alone, or in small teams - things like architecture, knowledge of web interfaces/APIs, etc. may not be something the developers are familiar with. Then the project becomes popular, which makes it harder to clean stuff up without breaking code depending on your project.

New developers hearing about companies embracing stuff like "Break stuff - ship code" isn't really helping them focus on quality either.

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#173

Post by sp527 »

copperx wrote: post #81
sp527 wrote: post #42

What you're witnessing is the migration of complexity to the frontend. It's becoming very difficult to find a backend problem that doesn't have a well-defined, generally accepted solution and accompanying FOSS that you would be stupid (or even borderline criminally negligent) to ignore. In fact, full-stack programming in general is boring enough that I welcome anything that stirs the pot a bit. That said, having trie…

> That said, having tried at one time or another PM, management, and sales: programming is the worst monetizable career option, except for all the others. Could you clarify that sentence, please?

Just an Easter egg: http://wais.stanford.edu/Democracy/democracy_DemocracyAndChu...

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#175

Post by mirkules »

ng12 wrote: post #2

I don't know that they're all "horrible" hacks, but yes. We still generally don't know the best way to build a complicated website. We can't even agree on the simple stuff -- for example Angular2 and React, two of the hottest frameworks, pursue wildly different philosophies. I think it's exciting. It keeps me motivated to learn new things, and really think about the code I'm writing.

> We still generally don't know the best way to build a complicated website

We do. The web was supposed to be a content-delivery mechanism not an application-delivery mechanism. The problem is that it was shoehorned into an application-delivery mechanism, and the lines between content and user interface were blurred so much that it delivers neither particularly well any longer.

This quote from Alan Kay sums up my (and OP's) feelings about the web stack:

> The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#176

Post by jaredklewis »

apatters wrote: post #147
jaredklewis wrote: post #77

I think it's worth noting that back-end web development is an usually pleasant place. In most other types of programming, many technical decisions are made by the platform and working with tons of legacy cruft is the norm, not the exception. For example, where else can you so freely choose the programming language? Linux Driver? Use C. Mobile App? Java or Swift/Objective-C for Android or iPhone, respectively. GUI App…

This is exactly why I've always been puzzled by the urge to move more and more logic to the frontend. In backend development you have a choice of many mature languages, tools and frameworks which are fairly sane. I'll take that environment as the foundation of a web application any day and apply the mania of client-side javascript to it selectively in cases where we need to minimize server roundtrips.

I think it mainly comes from the fact that web applications are becoming more interactive. If you are going to implement photoshop in the browser, there's going to be a lot of client side logic.

Before, web development was more like, "fill in this form and when you're ready hit submit and we'll check it." Now people are implementing word processors and music libraries.

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#177

Post by ivanhoe »

bbcbasic wrote: post #155
raverbashing wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complicated to create UIs? Win32 was complicated. MFC was complicated. GTK is hard HTML and CSS aren't as complex as those. Not even close

You can create controls in WIN32 or MFC that would simply be impossible in HTML for a reasonable level of performance

Performance yes, you can't compete with that one because browsers don't let you control the low-level stuff. But the speed of development and the ease of doing complex layouts with css is hard to match (when you master css enough, of course), specially if you're trying to do UI from the code directly, without IDE helpers and visual builders.

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#178

Post by regularfry »

ivanhoe wrote: post #170
pixie_ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sad is the zillions of hours wasted by engineers on an inherently flawed stack. What's sad is how ridiculously complicated it is to create and manage relatively simple UIs. What's sad is an entire generations of programmers growing up and thinking this is normal. Programming is supposed to be about creating platforms for each other so we can continue solving higher (and higher) level problems. This web crap ha…

Interesting, what native UI system is in your opinion easier to work with than web? Why then so many devs choose to use WebBrowser wrappers to render their desktop/mobile UIs because it's way faster and easier to develop with?

Delphi 4's VCL and IDE was the high point. It's been downhill ever since.

Re: Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?

#180

Post by mirkules »

nostrebored wrote: post #4

There is some stuff that actually makes logical sense, like CSS Specificity, but yes a lot of it is hacky. I mean, negative margins? Clear? Thirty different lines of browser-specific rendering tweaks? WebKit is great, but any attempt to reform the competing browser shitshow reminds me of that xkcd comic about competing standards: https://xkcd.com/927/ (former web developer -- get out while you have your sanity)

Rather surprised you didn't mention vertical alignment. I mean, this year marks the 20 year anniversary of CSS. 20 fucking years of not having vertical align!

(before someone says "flexbox", remember it's still in "working draft" stage)

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