Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
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Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
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Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#2I’ve been using react for 8 years. In that time I’ve gone from webpack, to vite.
Lately using remix or nextjs. Not that much has had to change in that time, it definitely feels more stable in the past 5 years or so.
Every new library is using components, just with their own preferred syntax.
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#3Hum... The Great (Web) Frontend Revamping seems to have passed. Nowadays people are still discussing if React or Vue is better, with a clear intonation of "whatever works for you, I prefer X".
Looks like the field is maturing.
Either that or we are on a fake calm before we see a lot of articles about people migrating into wasm in "whatever language has support for it right now" (AFAIK, currently wasm goes with rust).
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#4I’ve been using react for 8 years. In that time I’ve gone from webpack, to vite. Lately using remix or nextjs. Not that much has had to change in that time, it definitely feels more stable in the past 5 years or so. Every new library is using components, just with their own preferred syntax.
I'll agree it feels a little more stable in the past 5 years or so. I do have a sense that a lot of the UI libraries we used on our project are working fine, but are also deprecated and have a doom's day clock on them. Oddly, this is as much from "in house" widgets as it is 'in the wild" ones.
Specifically, I know that if we want to bring in some widgets that were created this year, we have a massive upgrade task ahead of us. :(
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#5UI/UX is a fundamentally flawed field for a number of intersecting reasons, most of which boil down to not really distinguishing between when it's doing engineering, when it's doing psychology, and when it's doing fashion. And these days, on web apps and mobile apps, it mostly does fashion. Fashion must change for the sake of change. To more easily support these frequent changes, more libraries get invented to make doing new things easier. After that, everything in the article makes sense.
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#6The old saying goes like this: "if you want freedom on one layer you need stability on the layer below"
My guess is that since frontend web development is at the top of the stack it has an incredible amount of freedom so everything changes every minute. You don't see too many people wanting to subvert HTTP making a billion homemade alternatives
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#7I’ve been using react for 8 years. In that time I’ve gone from webpack, to vite. Lately using remix or nextjs. Not that much has had to change in that time, it definitely feels more stable in the past 5 years or so. Every new library is using components, just with their own preferred syntax.
Yeah I actually think react is the stability. Its still here, still the main choice.
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#8I think that if you want a page to impress or make a splash then sure, you always have to move to the next greatest thing, however, I don't work for them but I've paid for Telerik Kendo Controls (the react ones specifically)since they were released, before then, the AngularJs ones and it's been great - it keeps my (albeit internal app) UI development stable, fast and looks great with minimal fussing about. It's been years now and it feels very stable and quick. The switch from AngularJs to React was the only unstable part, but it was at an inflection point in the number of apps I had to support and develop, so the change was actually welcome. YMMV
(edit - I just realized I spent the weekend experimenting with MAUI, so I'm full of it)
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#9I think part of the reason is the evolution of common user networking.
Initially, users had low bandwidth connections, and web pages were mostly static with links.
Then came JavaScript interactivity and AJAX.
As users bandwidth grew, we started having heavier frameworks and SPAs.
I believe there is another revolution that is happening now because of decreased latency. Recently with protocols such as HTTP2, web sockets, and edge computing, round trip latency is greatly decreased. This is resulting in UI where more of the logic lives on the server and has led to such libraries as htmx (client) and Turbo.
It will be interesting to see where this settles out.
Re: Why is front-end development so unstable? (2018)
#10Hum... The Great (Web) Frontend Revamping seems to have passed. Nowadays people are still discussing if React or Vue is better, with a clear intonation of "whatever works for you, I prefer X". Looks like the field is maturing. Either that or we are on a fake calm before we see a lot of articles about people migrating into wasm in "whatever language has support for it right now" (AFAIK, currently wasm goes with rust).
This doesn’t feel that different to me from ~2010 era jQuery vs Prototype vs …Dojo(?) these things happen in waves. I’ve wondered if the next revolution will be wasm, or another round of JS magic… or something different.