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Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

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Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#231

Post by codemonkey-zeta »

intricatedetail wrote: post #12
nickjj wrote: post #4

Using React with an API back-end is only 1 of many choices. There's tools like Hotwire[0] and htmx[1] (both are back-end agnostic) that will let you create good old boring web apps with any back-end language where you don't need to write a ton of JS. You can sprinkle in front-end quality of life enhancements as needed to make nice feeling web apps with reasonably minimal complexity. [0]: https://hotwired.dev/ [1]: ht…

From my experience the more exotic frameworks are often pushed at smaller companies by developers hoping they'll be hard to replace whereas big companies use what s most popular to ensure they can find replacements easily.

Htmx isn't a framework, and is usually embedded in a more popular backend-rendering framework like Django or rails. Htmx is just a library that removes the need for the most common client-side SPA features, (i.e. partial page updates).

Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#232

Post by usgroup »

I think the fundamental reason this is true is because devs over engineer on purpose to make a meal out of simple things. Pretending that your thing will need all the bells and whistles means you can claim you did all sorts of glorious things on your resume and take yourself all that much more seriously.

Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#233

Post by throwaway0asd »

dimmke wrote: post #9

>I’ve hit a point where it just doesn’t seem like the end justifies the means in the vast majority of cases anymore I agree, but the only path forward is to change the specifications for HTML/CSS/JavaScript. As an industry we need to accept that these technologies get used to build web pages as well as software and adjust. This will remove a ton of the tooling. I think there are 3 basic things we could do to solve th…

State has nothing to do with the DOM. State is a data feature of your application which is not the DOM. It sounds like you are stuck in some inescapable framework mindset. If you can escape framework insanity state is an easily solved problem and the DOM stops being scary.

Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#236

Post by thepra »

mhuffman wrote: post #153
hnuser847 wrote: post #46

I feel your pain. My career happiness peaked around 2014 or 2015, when I was writing Rails monoliths. I felt like I could focus 100% of my energy on business logic since the framework was so opinionated and the stack was simple. Things went rapidly downhill after that, once microservices, SPAs, node.js, NoSQL, and serverless computing started becoming popular. Everything just felt like a step backward. Microservices…

>NoSQL, frankly, is utterly pointless, and I have no clue why it ever caught on. It caught on because "feature factory" startups used simple frameworks to make an MVP and didn't know shit about RDBMS administration, optimization, or schema planning so when it was schema migration time it was time for things to start breaking. With NoSQL (specifically the "document store" types) you could just keep throwing shit in th…

I've been through projects that gave schema migrations and when there was any mistake or error during schema migrations it was a real big pain to rollback, fix and release. With mongodb this is gone, schemas are no more of an issue as long as you make sure to keep the models sane and the business logic of the fields up to date.

Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#237

Post by rpgbr »

I’m a journalist who learnt to make websites back in the day and never bothered with newer, fancier technologies. My background isn’t suited to take on big projects, but I still have lots of fun designing little projects, such as my personal page[1] and weblogs[2].

Bonus point: these websites are always super snappy and easy to navigate. I can’t understand big projects based on React and other technologies that, no matter what happens on development, result in slow, busy, and generic websites.

[1] https://rodrigo.ghed.in [2] https://notes.ghed.in

Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#239

Post by nickjj »

intricatedetail wrote: post #12
nickjj wrote: post #4

Using React with an API back-end is only 1 of many choices. There's tools like Hotwire[0] and htmx[1] (both are back-end agnostic) that will let you create good old boring web apps with any back-end language where you don't need to write a ton of JS. You can sprinkle in front-end quality of life enhancements as needed to make nice feeling web apps with reasonably minimal complexity. [0]: https://hotwired.dev/ [1]: ht…

From my experience the more exotic frameworks are often pushed at smaller companies by developers hoping they'll be hard to replace whereas big companies use what s most popular to ensure they can find replacements easily.

Hotwire is created by Basecamp which also houses the main creators of Rails.

Basecamp has been around for ~20 years. I have a lot of confidence that it'll be around and supported because it's a substantial part of the stack involved with a real world application that is their primary business. It's also from a group of folks who have an impeccable track record for supporting the tools they use.

Re: Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

#240

Post by mpweiher »

coffeefirst wrote: post #16

I call this the "path to enlightenment." You have discovered that the most popular toolchain is overkill for 95% of the things its used for. The problem is that's true literally across the board. You move to the backend and you have to deal with people who fell in love with microservices and weird databases that they didn't need. You move to ops and you have to deal with k8s when a single container would do. If you t…

> If you try mobile app development, let me know, I've never tried but I doubt it's exempt

It's just as bad. Different, but bad.

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