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Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

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Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#221

Post by tigershark »

lkrubner wrote: post #210
meredydd wrote: post #56

Web frameworks are churn-y because they are incredibly leaky abstractions covering really awkward impedance mismatches. This means that they are never quite satisfactory - and that just to use one, you need to be capable of building a new one yourself. Think of a typical web app. Your data exists: 1. As rows in a database, accessed via SQL 2. As model objects on the server, accessed via method calls and attributes 3.…

What is curious is that the tech industry has been very conservative about rethinking these 6 things that you just listed. Why rows in a relational database? Why objects? Why Javascript? And why HTML? We'd surely be in a better place if we got rid of these things and rethought our approach from first principles. I've written about these issues many times before. Regarding the problem with objects, I wrote "Object Ori…

There have been decades of attempts at databases with a different model than relational and we have seen what happened. The reality is that a relational model is very well suited for general purpose databases. For specific needs you can use timeseries databases or key/value store, but at this point I seriously doubt that the Nth attempt of killing the relational model will succeed. And honestly I prefer an enforced relational schema rather than an ungodly mess of schemaless documents.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#222

Post by Cthulhu_ »

augbog wrote: post #218

> Before we get carried away, it’s worth validating whether the meme really has basis in reality. Do front end technologies actually change that quickly? > In the sense of major view technologies, probably not. Consider this list of the highest ‘starred’ JavaScript front-end technologies on Github: Seriously? So you're basing front end technology changes based on stars on Github? Also I think it's wrong to say that f…

I think the stars were mainly to get some kind of data, given how it's hard to get real live data.

The article itself resonates with a non-data-powered feeling I've had for years. The front-end change meme is from a few years ago, during the highly unstable period shortly after Angular and (with it) single-page applications rose up, then suddenly Angular 2 was announced (which made everyone feel like their investment and commitment to Angular 1 was a wasted effort), React climbed up and got a few alternative implementations, React state management got a couple of alternatives (and a lot of thought went into those; I see that era as more of a philosophical era), and there was some drama on both the Angular and React side, causing people to split off and do things like create a new programming languages (Atscript), Angular the good parts (Aurelia), and (a bit late to the party), Vue.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#223

Post by criddell »

collyw wrote: post #60
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I got asked if I had a blog in an interview. I am a software engineer not a self marketer.

> I am a software engineer not a self marketer.

I sure hope that wasn't your answer. Writing a technical blog can also be about sharing what you know or participating in a greater community.

Even a non-technical blog can give an interviewer a better sense of who you are and how well you write.

I think it's a reasonable question. Writing is an important skill for a software person.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#224

Post by criddell »

collyw wrote: post #201
zoul wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software engineer that loves to help others. Nothing to do with self-marketing, at least not intentionally, but a welcomed skill in the team. So the question makes sense to me.

I like helping others as well. I don't need to fart about writing blogs to do it.

It does increase your reach though. I work on Windows software and a blog like Raymond Chen's Old New Thing is super valuable.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#225

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #212
ggregoire wrote: post #131

Sorry but I find font-end development pretty stable. Having to learn a new library every 3-4 years (because of a new job, generally) is it really a big deal? In my career I also had to learn Java, PHP, C#, Node.js, bash, batch, Python… Build apps with Spring, CakePHP, Symfony 1 & 2, ASP.NET MVC 3 & 4… Query database with Hibernate, Entity Framework, Linq SQL… Handle dependencies with Maven, Nugget… Store data in Post…

> Having to learn a new library every 3-4 years (because of a new job, generally) is it really a big deal? _If_ frontend development is all you do, then no, it isn't. One of the good things about the internet is that it's possible for a lone wolf to build and ship something amazing. One person can understand enough of the full stack, from HTML/CSS through JS to a serverside language and basic server administration, t…

I've recently gone back to do some Java development after idk, five years of front-end and mobile, and the tooling and frameworks are still the same. A bit more polished maybe, but, Java, Spring, Gradle, bit of Hibernate (urgh), bit of Jackson magic, not much has changed since then, so it was pretty easy to get back up to speed in that area.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#227

Post by sireat »

nostrademons wrote: post #157
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this actually a new phenomena? I remember when I started programming c. 2000, the big-name programming gurus were folks like Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Uncle Bob, Ron Jeffries, Dave Thomas, Joel Spolsky, Jeff Atwood, Martin Fowler, et al. While some of them mostly knew their stuff, some were outright hacks (Peter Norvig's vs. Ron Jeffries' attempts to create a sudoku solver is one of my favorite examples [1]). Mo…

Like everytime Fabrice puts out something you know it is bound to be something interesting: https://bellard.org/

not driven by selling anything.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#228

Post by lkrubner »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #219
lkrubner wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is curious is that the tech industry has been very conservative about rethinking these 6 things that you just listed. Why rows in a relational database? Why objects? Why Javascript? And why HTML? We'd surely be in a better place if we got rid of these things and rethought our approach from first principles. I've written about these issues many times before. Regarding the problem with objects, I wrote "Object Ori…

There have been attempts at rethinking it though; noSQL was the buzzword of a couple of years ago, and even nowdays there's mature tools like Firebase that allow you to store and retrieve data much more directly than e.g. SQL. The challenge in nosql storage is of course data migrations and whatnot. But yeah, in theory you can just open up a MongoDB instance to your front-end and not have to bother with SQL or much of…

Angular and React both rely on Javascript and HTML, so you can't describe them as "designed to be great front-end technologies". HTML was designed for document exchange, it is a descendent of SGML. Javascript was initially meant to be a light weight scripting language that allowed dynamic elements in HTML. It's gotten better over the years, but it is still far from what you would expect if you were trying to build a great programming environment for the front end. As to the limits of HTML, just consider forms. In the last 20 years, there have been very few new form elements added. Compare the form elements available in HTML in 2018 to what VisualBasic 6 had achieved by 1999, or what Netbeans/Swing offered by 2003.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#229

Post by conradfr »

ggregoire wrote: post #173
k__ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I still don't get th Vue hype.

Angular 1 developers going back to something similar (my 2 cents).

As someone who liked Angular1 and like React but can't keep up with the ecosystem, it's kind of the good middle ground.

Re: Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable?

#230

Post by BjoernKW »

lkrubner wrote: post #210
meredydd wrote: post #56

Web frameworks are churn-y because they are incredibly leaky abstractions covering really awkward impedance mismatches. This means that they are never quite satisfactory - and that just to use one, you need to be capable of building a new one yourself. Think of a typical web app. Your data exists: 1. As rows in a database, accessed via SQL 2. As model objects on the server, accessed via method calls and attributes 3.…

What is curious is that the tech industry has been very conservative about rethinking these 6 things that you just listed. Why rows in a relational database? Why objects? Why Javascript? And why HTML? We'd surely be in a better place if we got rid of these things and rethought our approach from first principles. I've written about these issues many times before. Regarding the problem with objects, I wrote "Object Ori…

HTML is declarative if you use it that way. You can even use it as an API: https://bjoernkw.com/2018/05/20/html-is-an-api/

HTML is a good compromise between procedural / event-based UI frameworks (such Java Swing or Apache Wicket) and visual UI design tools (such as RAD Studio, Apple's Interface Builder or Adobe Dreamweaver) that allow you to implement the most common patterns fairly easily while often making the design of more custom UIs much more difficult.

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