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Second-Guessing the Modern Web

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Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#321

Post by mavhc »

mirimir wrote: post #120
luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

> I sometimes wonder if the people claiming to hate client-side technologies or disable JS in their browsers have actually ever had to build a complex website to put food on their table. My bet is the answer is often no, or they are a contrarian in general. Anyone who cares about privacy allows minimal JS etc. Especially if they're using Tor. And given Tor's high latency and low bandwidth, sites that require lots of…

Proof that hardly anyone cares about privacy

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#322

Post by rimliu »

luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

I wonder, when did this shift happen wrt the Web: we only care about how it is easy for the developers, not for the users. Despite all the talk about UX a lot of the momentum is still in the wrong direction.

I've been writing working with the web close to 25 years now. It is amusing to see it come the full circle. How hard it is to understand, that you don't need react for some blog, or anything which is not even remotely an app?

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#323

Post by rimliu »

luxphl wrote: post #104
burlesona wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part I think the reason so many web devs put up with the “all-react” (and similar) development experience is basically cargo culting. If you admit you don’t like it, chances are there’s at least one front-end hipster around who will mock you as outdated, and that’s enough to silence most. For the hipsters, the problems of SPAs are hard, and engineers like hacking on hard problems. Also the fact that the…

This is what I meant by gatekeeping; there is common misconception that you have to go looking for a library to solve a problem. And it makes it seem like there's a higher barrier to entry than there is. But the reality is that React is plain HTML and Javascript, in a less error-prone and maintainable package. Everything you can do with vanilla JS you can do in React, but with React you benefit from being forced to s…

> But the reality is that React is plain HTML and > Javascript, in a less error-prone and maintainable > package.

This is far form the reality. And the reality is, that more often than not you do not even need JavaScript, not to mention React.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#324

Post by mwcampbell »

luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

> for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive.

Our salaries are expensive because, presumably, we're being paid to make something that serves the users. So anything that benefits us at the expense of the people we're serving should be rejected. How self-centered can we be?

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#325

Post by reroute1 »

steve_buscemi wrote: post #225
fish45 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe we are https://adhdawarenessmonth.org/everyone-has-little-adhd/ An ADHD diagnosis is not purely based off of exhibiting behaviors typically associated with it. While everyone is forgetful/distracted sometimes, ADHDers have a physical/chemical difference in their brain which make such behaviors impossible to avoid. > Suggesting the whole world stop doing this is silly One person at a time

Just wanted to say that I don't think this is a silly pursuit, and I'm sure plenty of other people reading feel the same way. I think this is a serious issue because the language we use is related to how we act and treat each other, and talking about the issue has a real effect. Reminds me of the quote attributed to Margaret Mead, whom I actually don't know anything about besides the quote: "Never doubt that a small…

Yea maybe save it for when speech is actually a real issue and not over policing and treating it like it's your personal servant. Grow up and get over it

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#326

Post by deiznof »

grey-area wrote: post #214
luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time The premise of the article is that they are not easier to work with and do not save time in most situations. I agree. Most websites are fundamentally documents, even those that think of themselves as apps. You could even build gmail quite easily as a document based app with some limited use of fetc…

>Your about page is not improved by using react.

Well...fortunately people don't use React for making About pages.

These examples of why not to use React in these comments are silly, people use them for web apps 95% of the time.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#327

Post by OOPMan »

burlesona wrote: post #72
luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

For the most part I think the reason so many web devs put up with the “all-react” (and similar) development experience is basically cargo culting. If you admit you don’t like it, chances are there’s at least one front-end hipster around who will mock you as outdated, and that’s enough to silence most. For the hipsters, the problems of SPAs are hard, and engineers like hacking on hard problems. Also the fact that the…

Having done some old Skool desktop dev recently I can't shake the feeling that modern web development is mostly just trying to reinvent wheels that have mostly been sorted for 20+ years.

I guess it's understandable though, the web was never really designed with its current use-case in mind.

People do so love forcing square pegs into round holes though.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#328

Post by ajsnigrutin »

pistoriusp wrote: post #307
burlesona wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part I think the reason so many web devs put up with the “all-react” (and similar) development experience is basically cargo culting. If you admit you don’t like it, chances are there’s at least one front-end hipster around who will mock you as outdated, and that’s enough to silence most. For the hipsters, the problems of SPAs are hard, and engineers like hacking on hard problems. Also the fact that the…

> If you admit you don’t like it, chances are there’s at least one front-end hipster around who will mock you as outdated, and that’s enough to silence most. It sounds like you're reinforcing this divide by classifying people who have a different opinion to you as "hipsters." They label your technology choice as outdated, and you label them as hipsters. You become the thing you fight.

The problem with using some shiny new library/software/app/technology is, that it might dissapear in a year. The developers will move on to new companies, and work with some new shiny tech, and all your codebase will be useless due to a unmaintained library and no new people (developers) who know how to use it.

I wanted to make an example that it was like starting work at a company, and seeing that they're still using phpBB (but with a 1 year old library)... but it seems phpBB is still being developed...

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#329

Post by danjac »

userbinator wrote: post #113
luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. As a user and developer myself, that's the sort of selfish attitude that really really angers your users. I sometimes wonder if the people claiming to hate client-side technologies or disable JS in their browsers have actually ever had to build a complex website to put food on their table. My bet is the answ…

Perhaps the SPA pattern, for all the justifications from developers (and yes, of course there are genuine cases where it's a good fit) is really an outcome of Conway's Law[1] in action. In a large enough organization, you corral your dev teams into isolated, specialist "backend" and "frontend" groups which end up communicating largely through decoupled APIs. As with microservices, it's not really about whether this is the most efficient and user-friendly approach to delivering useful apps to the end users, but how much this architecture mirrors your company's org chart.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#330

Post by TeMPOraL »

onion2k wrote: post #293
xorcist wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few SPAs give proper user feedback. There could be any number of silent errors in the background. It's even evident for relatively basic things such as infinite scroll. Users on sketchy connections won't even see all the items in a web store if their mobile connection is sketchy enough, and they will never even know it. There are some real costs here. Had anyone seriously A/B tested these things they wouldn't be…

Very few SPAs give proper user feedback. There could be any number of silent errors in the background. Badly built apps that ignore errors and don't work well for users are certainly not limited to SPAs, and blaming SPA tech for that seems a bit unreasonable.

For "classical" websites, it was not possible to screw it up. The feeback was always there - clear, unmistakable, universal across sites. Boom, "No Internet", site's gone. Press "back" to get the previous state and click again/resubmit later. And it was nice that you could actually do that - use the "back" button to revert to the last correct state even without an Internet connection. Can't do that with almost any SPA these days.

I suppose it just boils down to the fact that with more freedom comes more freedom to fuck things up. But when you see an industry systematically fucking things up, and being driven by economic incentives that encourage fucking things up, one has to wonder whether some of those freedoms should be taken away.

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