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Why is modern web development so complicated?

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Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#531

Post by quickthrower2 »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #333
afarrell wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that "don't build shit software" isn't actionable advice on how to avoid building shit software. For someone seeking to be a more skillful web software engineer, there's no information there.

This is fundamentally because our industry is built on opinions, not standards. You talk to one software engineer, and they'll say, "that's built in PHP, so it sucks; it should have been built with npm, obviously." Then you talk to another and they say, "I can't believe they built that with npm, the package management system is just terrible and the whole mess is bloated and there have been a ton of security issues.…

Software is an interesting animal because what PHP and NodeJS have in common is they were created as hobbies, as were a lot of the frameworks and software tech the world relies on. Maybe there is a bit of us software engineers liking the shiny new thing?

There are a lot of dynamics going on. One is programmer's curiosity but then there is a financial incentive to be on the latest tech. If you see React jobs paying more than Angular jobs, it might be a sign to jump ship which has nothing to do with technical merits. Then there is things like Blockchain that excites investors and techies alike, even when it's a useless solution for something.

People sitting in a room deciding the genuine best thing to do is going to be hard with all these dynamics going on.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#532

Post by foobar_ »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #361
reaperducer wrote: post #38

It doesn't have to be complicated, if you get support from above. A few weeks ago I launched a new web site for a health care company. HTML, PHP, CSS, and MySQL. No frameworks. No javascript. No garbage. It replaced a site that was a mess of javascript libraries on top of frameworks on top of a half dozen jquery version and on and on and on. The company administrators, doctors, practitioners, etc... are so happy with…

Could you point me towards some modern-looking websites that don't use JS?

Basecamp uses rails and turbolinks.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#533

Post by natrik »

cercatrova wrote: post #444
majewsky wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add one word to this: > There was nothing anymore preventing web development from becoming so complicated The early web was much simpler because of the resource constraints of the 90s and early 2000s. Pages only started serving 10 MB of JS when browsers got to the point where they could chew through 10 MB of JS at a barely acceptable pace. Also: > Managers don't really feel like pointing out "the project I'm…

Resources are allocated to their constraints. You spend as much money as you have, as much time as you have, you hire as many people as you can afford, and so on. It may be because people don't think on an absolute time scale but rather a relative one; if you make 1 million in revenue and you only have 3 employees, you might feel like you should hire more. What happens if you start making one billion in revenue? Read…

Also companies aim to maximize the margins.

If profit is currently $800,000/year and adding 1 software developer at $120,000/year salary (+benefits, hidden costs...) can lead to $800,001 profit, the company would do it.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#534

Post by qwtel »

buboard wrote: post #463
hajile wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flexbox? That's way easier than float design and both of those are way easier than designing everything with tables.

i love tables. in fact tables can be more responsive than "responsive" layouts. They were from the start. Pity that some purists ostracized them

isn’t css grid effectively the return of tables? I’ve only had limited experience with both, but thought they were similar.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#535

Post by flukus »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #361
reaperducer wrote: post #38

It doesn't have to be complicated, if you get support from above. A few weeks ago I launched a new web site for a health care company. HTML, PHP, CSS, and MySQL. No frameworks. No javascript. No garbage. It replaced a site that was a mess of javascript libraries on top of frameworks on top of a half dozen jquery version and on and on and on. The company administrators, doctors, practitioners, etc... are so happy with…

Could you point me towards some modern-looking websites that don't use JS?

This one? The JS is very light and optional. And this site is far more interactive than most websites.

I'm not sure why you need a modern "looking" site since JS is about the functionality not the looks.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#536

Post by sgift »

icxa wrote: post #459
thaumaturgy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fundamentally because our industry is built on opinions, not standards. You talk to one software engineer, and they'll say, "that's built in PHP, so it sucks; it should have been built with npm, obviously." Then you talk to another and they say, "I can't believe they built that with npm, the package management system is just terrible and the whole mess is bloated and there have been a ton of security issues.…

I think a more eloquent way is to say fundamentally creating long lasting software structures is more of an art rather than a science, and you can't just tell someone "go practice these 5 things and you'll be the next Picasso" you just have to do it a lot of times, over and over, learning from your mistakes. There are no shortcuts. You have to build a ton of software, and make a lot of mistakes, and most importantly,…

The important thing is: Picasso knew what to study. Over time art had established a canon of things which helped people to get better at classical arts. Only after he studied that canon in depth and for a long time he could then break into new territories and start breaking rules intentionally to develop his own style/school.

Our craft is very bad at providing such a canon. It is even anti-intellectual in parts ("what do you mean you cannot be a master after x weeks? You are a gatekeeper! you suck"). That and we are still not sure what is important and what isn't (i.e. what should be part of the canon). Our medium of study changes all the time. Arts medium of study is reality and reality, for all our advances, doesn't really change.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#537

Post by langitbiru »

TylerE wrote: post #464
bgdkbtv wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed with PostgreSQL. But I'd go with Laravel rather than Django or Rails. More modern, more features, active development and constant new features are guaranteed for Laravel, in addition to growing community and abundance of learning resources.

Five years ago, I decided I was never going to touch PHP ever again. I have been much happier professionally since that day.

Except in a case when we want to build an e-commerce website for client. PHP has so many mature frameworks, like Magento/WooCommerce etc. I look at Python ecosystem. Yeah, we have Oscar and Saleor but they are pale compared to their PHP cousin.

But other than e-commerce, yes, Django or even Rails is my preferred choice.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#538

Post by kjsthree »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #407
thaumaturgy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fundamentally because our industry is built on opinions, not standards. You talk to one software engineer, and they'll say, "that's built in PHP, so it sucks; it should have been built with npm, obviously." Then you talk to another and they say, "I can't believe they built that with npm, the package management system is just terrible and the whole mess is bloated and there have been a ton of security issues.…

Likely in that other industry the engineer built 100+ other basically identical items that are two or three orders of magnitude less complex and where all the costs and techniques are pretty well known. Also, those mature industries routinely overrun by millions of dollars and months or years, event though they are dealing with a fraction of the complexity and the costs and techniques are well known. Software is the…

> Software is the only industry where you are asked to build systems that have never been built before but that are more complex than anything ever built in the history of "mature industries"

I have a feeling that some SpaceX engineers would have something to say about this after one of their rockets lands on a floating barge.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#540

Post by [deleted] »

wolco wrote: post #315
diminoten wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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