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Why is modern web development so complicated?

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Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#311

Post by tyingq »

jjcm wrote: post #84

Because it had to play catch up to native apps feature wise due to demand, while building upon a base that wasn't intended for that, while serving the same app to literally thousands of different environments and expecting it to work perfectly. Thus, growing pains and overly complicated frameworks/plugins/other bits slapped together to address the core issues which ballooned the complexity. But we all knew that. What…

"What's more impressive is that things are getting less complicated."

Over what timeframe? While it certainly had its own issues, the HTML5/jQuery pairing easily fit into your head. Notwithstanding the benefits, React, packers, routers, and the 10 other things you bundle, is a cognitive load. Doesn't help that the routers and 10 other things don't come with React, and so, choices vary across teams.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#312

Post by root_axis »

temac wrote: post #290
void445be54d48a wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't build software and then we won't have shit software

I'm a fan of that idea and I'm taking it even further: Erase existing software, so we have less amount of shit software. I'm actually applying that technique at work with great results (really!)

Deleting code is not always better. I know a lot of developers who like to "refactor" code by making everything more terse and they regard that as a win even though the code is now cleverly incomprehensible.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#313

Post by whiteopinions »

wolco wrote: post #279
whiteopinions wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like you wrote something extremely limited. The client will inevitably ask for some modification to it, and if you're not there to do it the next developer is going to curse at you for writing such a brain dead application. I've seen comments like this on HN and then I've seen these types of applications in the wild. I call it the most dishonest form of consulting you can do. You've put a real shine on so…

A simple custom php site is extremely easy to follow if you have a programming background. If I'm the next developer I would thank him. Ever deal with 5 versions of jQuery that are conflicting. Trust me life is easier in vanilla php.

You know what's actually incredibly easy if you have a programming background?

Consolidating versions of jQuery.

>If I'm the next developer I would thank him.

For what? You wouldn't know anything about the previous site implementation

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#314

Post by scarface74 »

dsego wrote: post #217
wolco wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is just validation a js framework would be overkill. jQuery would fit well here.

You missed the multi-page forms part. As soon as you have state of some fields affect how other fields or parts of the page display it becomes complex really quickly. There is an explosion of possible states. If you've ever seen code like this, you know why more modern js frameworks were invented: onSomethingChanged() { $('#foo').prop('disabled', true); $('#spinner').removeClass('invisible'); $('#error-1').prop('hidd…

My favorite combination for dead simple sites is HandlebarsJS.

1. Render model from your JS object.

2. attach events

3. Change model

4. Go to step 1

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#315

Post by wolco »

diminoten wrote: post #184
crumpets wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're not right. How you render CSS and the page have very little to do with how secure your app is. SQL escaping, session handling, etc all come easily with standard php libraries. So "I didn't bother with any PHP frameworks" doesn't mean the dev wrote an SQL connector.

I'm sorry if you thought I meant CSS rendering was the source of potential vulnerabilities, but for any website that has, say, users, if you're not using any PHP frameworks or external libraries you might have to implement some crypto of your own to store passwords securely, just for starters. I don't think PHP offers a standard library to do that, does it? There are a hundred examples that are specific to whatever a…

"There are a hundred examples that are specific to whatever app this guy built for the Healthcare company, not all of which are covered by the PHP standard library."

You would need to implement whatever custom code required or use a libruary. You would need to do the same with a framework. No framework offers business health care functionality. Do you think laravel has an ocr skin cancer detector package?

PHP is fast to write. Hearing people from the outside saying its impossible to write a php site that quickly makes me laugh. PHP makes development easy.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#316

Post by spaced-out »

Roboprog wrote: post #289
Roritharr wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest Question, how do I support our IE 11 Customers (8% of our MRR) with this approach?

Alas, about 50% of mine. Many government and healthcare organizations STILL using Internet Exploder, presumably until its 2025 end of life:-(

>presumably until its 2025 end of life

Oh you sweet summer child...

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#317

Post by temac »

geegoo wrote: post #218
reaperducer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's possible. Someone may come along who is all into DrupalPress and Agilereactboxqueryhack and think it's primitive. But they won't be able to say it's not maintainable, upgradable, or scalable. And it's documented out the wazoo, all the way down to the CSS both in code and in the accompanying PDFs. The last developer gave zero thought to who would come next. I've given great thought, and included the occa…

There are pros and cons to this. One con is that the next developer might have to spend considerable time buying into your ecosystem to be productive. A pro is that it is easily maintainable by you since you built it; which is also a con since it's not generally feasible for a single developer to cover all the in's and out's of a web ecosystem. Lets say you pass away tomorrow, and a week from now a major security vul…

The web has nothing magic.

People have been maintaining SW developed by 3rd parties for several decades. Something like 5 or 6, probably. With all the various amount of available documentation you can imagine, and that includes no documentation and really stupid code bases, or even no source code and you have to patch a binary.

So while I recognize it can be obviously cool to e.g. have virtually no code but simply use a well-designed and currently actively-maintained third party project, it is not always possible, and if it's not then implementing (or even just configuring) anything on top of fashionable software can also be done in crappy undocumented ways.

So the key is to actually have detailed and useful documentation, regardless of 3rd party stacks (or they very relative "absence", I mean probably don't develop your own web-server nor your own database nor your own programming language nor your own operating system nor your own web-browser...)

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#318

Post by NeoBasilisk »

dpau wrote: post #286
syn0byte wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you drive an 18 wheeler to work every day? They are used by millions of professional people every day who's job it is to drive! Why would you be different from all those people that you think you need to use a little car instead? The answer is obvious in both cases; You don't need it and it would be wasteful. If I don't have a huge database with constant read/write calls, If I don't have to try to manage mu…

i'm sorry but i'm really not convinced by this argument. there are many frameworks available in various languages/platforms, some created specifically to be light and fast (in the PHP example above, lumen is a possible choice). my other argument would be- why are you spending so much time on plumbing when you could be concentrating on the parts of your application that make it special?

Most people are making CRUD apps that aren't all that special.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#319

Post by JohnBooty »

avgDev wrote: post #98
TotempaaltJ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here's the trick to not building shit software: don't build shit software. It's a crude way to put it, but the reality is that you can build bad websites in any framework (including old PHP stuff and new JavaScript hype). You can also build good websites in any framework. It depends way more on the organisation or team developing it than on the libraries you use.

I agree as I build some terrible applications in .Net MVC, which is a decent framework. I think you have to build shit software not to build shit software. First, professional web app I developed 3 years ago is still being build upon now. Even though it is pure garbage and I hate touching it, because I "made it work". As I gained experience and got burned because I did something a certain way I slowly but surely look…

   I think about what is the number 1 priority for a piece of code, am I gonna use it once and forget it? Will I use it all the time?
I've gone in the opposite direction in my career.

Overbuilding the initial version of something for a bunch of anticipated (rather than actual use/failure scenarios) is something I now work very hard to avoid.

The key IMHO is really being nimble enough to extract and/or refactor and/or refine as soon as it is needed. Not before, not after.

"Overly robust" code is actually a huge problem sometimes. All that unused code is in there, giving the appearance of being robust, but is not actually battle-tested....

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#320

Post by hombre_fatal »

aphextron wrote: post #258

Web development is complicated because it is no longer web development. It's application development. And nontrivial applications are, by definition, complicated.

People forget that "front-end development" is just "client development" which isn't simple nor trivial on any platform.
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