Why is modern web development so complicated?
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Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#2I don't know, but I do know I would rather fix a race condition on a multithreaded application than figure out how flexbox works or even understand all the different parts of the DOM.
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#3nice article; I don't really find it that complicated, only extremely useful.. In fact without it i would be quite the sad panda especially as I'm still required to support IE11 for foreseeable future in many large apps. But ya, if you don't need it don't use it. I'm sure as heck glad all the tooling I have now exists though!
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#4The downside of using a code converter is that when something does break, the browser is going to show you the generated code and you have to map that back into your original code. If the generated code is ugly (hint: it's always ugly) then this can be a real problem.
The generators can also do things in really dumb ways that make it slow or resource intensive and you'll have no clue why your elegant solution is running like a dog unless you go through and read the horrible generated code to see what it is actually doing.
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#5AFAIK, any modern development is so complicated.
Setup a web server: * VM from Cloud provider * Installing a bunch of staff * Throwing in a k8s cluster * Service mesh * Yaml files * Various network configuration * DNS * Firewall * Security etc.
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#6My thought is it has to be a product of the language. Javascript can be used imperatively, declaratively, procedurally, and functionally, so it is. That coupled with the fact that it’s probably the most widely distributed interpreter so lots of people use it and ideas come out at a rapid clip. Then there are the vendor differences...
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#7Because web developers have massive a chip on their shoulder about not being """real""" developers.
So now we have meme frameworks and transpilers and hysterical build toolchains all for a platform for sharing documents.
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#8The downside of using a code converter is that when something does break, the browser is going to show you the generated code and you have to map that back into your original code. If the generated code is ugly (hint: it's always ugly) then this can be a real problem. The generators can also do things in really dumb ways that make it slow or resource intensive and you'll have no clue why your elegant solution is runn…
Source maps help a ton with this. Have never had an issue figuring out where the heck an exception came from when I've had source maps setup correctly.
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#9Because we're no longer making websites, we're making apps.
Sure if you just need a simple website, make it from scratch, but good luck maintaining a full blown app using jQuery.
It's not just web development that is hard. You can't honestly say any toolchain on the desktop side is any easier.
That said, web development is getting easier now that the dust is settling and only a few major frameworks are used.
Get started with create-react-app. React is the industry standard, use it.
1) Install NodeJS
2) npx create-react-app demo
Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?
#10It's complicated because the bar in terms of user experience went up (or so they say) and now everyone wants a SPA. Because of this you now have a generation of devs that only knows how to build SPA. I'm actually thinking to move some stuff from Django to Gatsby/React setup just because everyone knows React, and a lot of our new devs don't know Django/Python.