Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#21

Post by freedomben » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #3

>Why is Front-End Development So Unstable? Because on average, the skill level in the whole webdev community is low. Below that of "a dev with average schooling, and average industry experience" Webdev has close to no barriers for entry, and is under the strongest influence from the fact that the evaluation of deliverables is not done by another tech professional out of all software development jobs The combo above m…

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I don't think that has to do with FE development in general. Some of the sharpest/smartest devs I know are FE JS guys. Seriously.

On the backend I have seen probably more "low skill" and even "incompetent" Java devs than any other language. Why? My guess is the low barriers to entry (as you say) and the ubiquity. I've also worked with some amazingly sharp Java devs too.

You're definitely right about the "borderline or de-facto frauds running webdev businesses selling 'ultrasophisticated' corporate websites on Wordpress to F500 types for few $k USD per hour of dev time." That's a rough problem and makes legitimate big-time web development bids induce sticker shock.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#22

Post by tribby » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

well, ever since the proliferation of mobile touch devices (it's been less than a decade) there's been this somewhat perverse history of "mobile-first" really meaning "native-first." tons of mobile websites are still essentially ads for their counterparts in app stores. this is for lots of reasons (mostly to do with financial incentives for both app makers and app stores), but ultimately the web still isn't as good as native. the chaos of the front-end world is a reflection of web developers trying to solve that, rather than those working on operating systems, web browsers, standards, etc.

the other reason is that vue hasn't be around very long ;)

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#23

Post by underwater » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #11

perlgeek wrote: post #6

> 2.5 years for the youngest isn’t that old in the scheme of things - it’s less than half the support lifespan of your typical desktop OS, for example - but it’s still a ways off our caricature. Let's compare it with some server-side technologies: Python/Django: 2005 Python/Flask: 2010 Nginx: 2004 Perl/Catalyst: 2006 Maybe I'm biased towards older software, but the difference to the popular frontend stuff is striking…

> but it seems many developers frown upon it these days This is sadly very true. jQuery is almost used as an insult these days. Having code be called "jQuery Spaghetti" is about the worst epithet that can be hurled at a javascript codebase these days.

jQuery is great for small snippets of code, but encourages a quick and dirty style that collapses for larger applications. Most jQuery applications couple their business logic to the mechanics of working with the DOM.

It was also intended to smooth over browser inconsistencies and gaps in APIs. This is less relevant these days now that browsers are more mature.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#24

Post by ozim » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #12

zitterbewegung wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more developers should use jquery to prototype an app and move torward a framework when it is needed. The same should be said when adopting redux when using react . Also webpack for building and moving beyond SQLite for data .

They really shouldn't. Modern browsers have lots of the selector magic built-in, and frameworks that are very, very small can handle the rest without the spaghetti.

What if I tell you, you can write spaghetti code in vanilla javascript, small framework or big framework.

You can also write decent code using jQuery.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#25

Post by underwater » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:51 PM UTC

perlgeek wrote: post #20

aaron-lebo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that the backend model has been around for 20 years if not more. You're locating lots of old-ish and stable libraries because that's when that stuff was made. Maybe you don't remember the days of Zope, Subway, Turbogears, Paste, Pylons, Werkzeug etc just within Python, but that happened. React is a relatively young model for the web. Wait 10 years and it'll look the same. I personally don't feel it'…

> Pick a library, stick with it, stop jumping to the next framework and the churn stops. I wish it were that easy. At work, we've picked angular 1, and now there's angular 5, which is a totally different framework (and the migration path only works well if you did everything juuuust right), and no clear policy on how long angular 1 will be maintained. So either we churn, or we have no idea how long there will be any…

This is the risk in the authors advice to just pick a monolithic framework.

We’ve been building a React framework. We’ve been careful about how we choose components to use, so there has been very little churn. And because we control the implementation we’ve been able to build things we could never have done with a library like Angular.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#26

Post by dhruvarora013 » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

I'd actually say that its less about instability and more about rapid experimentation. There's two main catalysts - the youth of single page web apps and the openness of the modern web.

The complexity of your everyday website is increasing as they move from static sites to web apps. The pressure to be as responsive and fluid as a mobile app is high, and that requires solutions for data management and synchronicity. There is no standardized way to solve these yet.

When you tie this increasing complexity with the free-form structure of the web (there is no recommended way to build a web app unlike mobile apps or to a lesser extent desktop apps), and then add the growth of JavaScript from a toy language to a full-blown complex ecosystem, you get even fewer established practices.

This is not to say that there will never be best practices but rather that what you're seeing is a language scaling with its needs without having a central dictatorial entity at its helm. You're seeing unprecedented growth and that can easily be confused with chaos and instability.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#27

Post by carapace » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

Programming industry is the only one more fashion-driven than the fashion industry. This is a known issue going back to the dawn time.

The big secret is that for most of us this is "works as intended". We like to program. Imagine being a mountain climber who loves climbing and gets paid (well!) to climb mountains. With real mountains, eventually you get to the top and you have to stop. With programming, the act of climbing the mountain creates more mountain above you. As long as you can find people to pay for it, you can keep climbing.

If you like programming please shoosh so the marks don't get wise.

If you just want to get shit done use Elm-lang and get on with your life.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#28

Post by softwarefounder » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

It's only unstable if you drink the JavaScript cool-aid, and change frameworks frequently.

I've been using Knockout 3.* for the past five years, no issue here.

Edit: Looks like some Angular and React devs have started downvoting :)

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#29

Post by nicoburns » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #5

It's because of all the icky data-sync for the client/service round trips. An async, slow, failure-prone concern wired throughout the entire codebase. I/O hurts everyone in subtly different ways and it's hard to solve so you see a lot of churn. service/database has this problem too (the ORM flamewars of the 00s) but to a much less degree because it is in a happier place on the latency chart: https://gist.github.com/j…

I agree with this. It also doesn't help that frontend code usually has to run on several versions of at 3 different runtimes. With backend code you can freely either stick with an older platform for stability, and adopt a new platform for new features. With frontend you don't have that choice in the same way.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#30

Post by Karrot_Kream » Wed, May 30, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #8

This is a really well-written and well-thought out piece. The author touches on a number of points but never gets polemical. This piece resonated with me particularly well: > Be wary of self-promotion > Over the last few years I’ve seen much more aggressive self-marketing in the JavaScript world, possibly due to the rise of paid online training materials and the employment/consulting advantage of being a Github ‘cele…

I'm finding the growing celebrity culture of programming to be troubling. I find that programming is becoming less and less about code or architecture and more about evangelism and marketing, but I'm not sure what changed in the incentive structure for this to happen, and I would like to find out.

Aside: This has made me reconsider being a career programmer.