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I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

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Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#101

Post by mb7733 »

>I’m hard-pressed to name more than a handful of web apps that I would say are genuinely good with no major flaw.

>Content websites are a different matter. A static or server-rendered content website with adequate typography and semantic markup is generally going to do its job pretty well.

I feel the exact opposite. Most web-based applications are pretty incredible these days.

It's the "content websites" that are insanely bloated and over engineered (and unnecessarily turned into "apps"). E.g. news sites, new reddit, recipe sites

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#102

Post by _carbyau_ »

dieortin wrote: post #63
_carbyau_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the reality that has been grinding me down of late. Nor do I find it limited to only web stuff. I see it in embedded and other market areas. sigh We have hardware doing billions of instructions per second, capable of transporting at least 500Mb/s within my computer, 120+Hz screens and yet: - Windows 10 desktop -> opening Start menu = 5 seconds wait. A trite example but once you look it is everywhere . This…

The start menu opens instantly in my computer, so that problem isn’t universal.

Absolutely! I could likely find the issue but it isn't obvious. So the complaint remains: for this extremely common and predictable use case, why is it not more reliable?

The main point is that problems like this are spotted everywhere in daily life. Time delays without apparent reason, questionable UI choices.

The complaint is not failure to work - they do work and are often widely used. But the experience is suboptimal for no apparent reason.

Similar to the article - whoever did this [latest annoying thing] needs to look at the "more better" example and just do that.

edit: Tried to write a shorter comment.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#103

Post by adrianN »

onion2k wrote: post #93
omarhaneef wrote: post #28

The author complains that developers argue about their tools and methods, insist on their favorite techniques, but produce (more) worse apps. Particularly for the amount of time and effort expended on developing the apps. The thing is: the debates aren’t naive. They’re exactly trying to workout the details. When someone says, hey forget postgresql and just use SQLite, and someone else says good luck if you hit n rows…

When someone says, hey forget postgresql and just use SQLite, and someone else says good luck if you hit n rows, and someone says it can easily handle n+m rows with x memory … This is a good example of how devs get things wrong. The argument between which database to use because you might hit the row limit has zero benefit to the user. It's devs wanting to avoid future work to migrate from one database to another; a…

Maybe most apps never see the problem of hitting the row limit because the devs spend time beforehand thinking about which limitations they're likely to hit.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#104

Post by EnKopVand »

I think the bad “web” has a lot more to do with the business side of things than whatever development tools you use. If the website is free to use, it’s either a passion or community project or it sells you. Sometimes that works out sort of well in places like HN, and other times it works out less well like on the infinite amount of shitty news papers. But those news papers can be shitty in all technologies even in the physically printed form.

I do think we need a better tool for finding the passion projects. Because search engines have basically become the “portals” they replaced by curating search results into being about herding us toward sales, but I’m sure we’ll see a shift sooner or later. It’s sort of already happening with more and more people returning to things like news letters instead of reading blogs.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#105

Post by moring »

croes wrote: post #82
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that better tools don't make better apps? A screwdriver changes removing a screw task from "extremely hard" to "extremely easy". Same way, a web framework makes writing a secure web server substantially easier than starting from scratch.

So just because you can remove screws more easily you build better shelves? You can build bad apps with good tools and good apps with bad tools. Just because it gets easier for the web dev doesn't makes it easier for the user and vice versa.

> So just because you can remove screws more easily you build better shelves?

Yes, with a high probability. Try to put all your screwdrivers away and then try to build a shelf without them. Not only will you need lots of time just for fastening the parts that you cannot spend on thinking on a more optimal layout of the shelf, making the result worse -- you will also judge every layout idea on how hard it will be to build without a screwdriver, instead of judging it on whether it is useful as part of the final shelf.

> You can build bad apps with good tools and good apps with bad tools.

This is a (probably unintentional) strawman. The argument was that tools make the task substantially easier and therefore improve the quality of the end result, not that they make it possible at all.

> Just because it gets easier for the web dev doesn't makes it easier for the user and vice versa.

Again, the argument was that tools make it easier to build a good product, not that tools themselves guarantee a good product. Of course with good tools you can build a bad product, and you can even build it easier than without good tools.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#106

Post by bryanrasmussen »

croes wrote: post #82
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that better tools don't make better apps? A screwdriver changes removing a screw task from "extremely hard" to "extremely easy". Same way, a web framework makes writing a secure web server substantially easier than starting from scratch.

So just because you can remove screws more easily you build better shelves? You can build bad apps with good tools and good apps with bad tools. Just because it gets easier for the web dev doesn't makes it easier for the user and vice versa.

>So just because you can remove screws more easily you build better shelves?

probably you build the same quality shelves slightly faster, being able to build things faster allows you to learn faster, by not focusing mental and physical energy on the relatively stupid task of removing screws you have more mental and physical energy to focus on things that maybe actually help you build better shelves.

A lot of the badness of the apps however is somewhat business driven, dark patterns etc.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#107

Post by divan »

Web dev community should just acknowledge the simple fact that typesetting engine from 80s (HTML) and legacy hacks built around it (css and js) is not a good foundation for making modern apps.

It's like trying to build apps with a spreadsheet cells (it's actually possible, but we don't do it, thankfully) by throwing a lot of abstractions and frameworks on top of it that would hide the ugliness of the foundation layer.

Once this acknowledged, thing can start moving fast. A lot of good stuff has been developed and discovered in the web dev community, but the foundation of it is total and complete crap.

Also I believe we are in the good moment of time to build a better web, as there's virtually one major player in browser engines market and it's easier to experiement with adding support for new foundation layers (think wasm or dart vm).

But so far, no matter how much hacks web community can come up with, web apps will be predominantly associated with horrible experience, performance and quality.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#108

Post by gen_greyface »

divan wrote: post #107

Web dev community should just acknowledge the simple fact that typesetting engine from 80s (HTML) and legacy hacks built around it (css and js) is not a good foundation for making modern apps. It's like trying to build apps with a spreadsheet cells (it's actually possible, but we don't do it, thankfully) by throwing a lot of abstractions and frameworks on top of it that would hide the ugliness of the foundation layer…

https://www.photopea.com/

this is a webapp

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#109

Post by porker »

belenos46 wrote: post #81
aranchelk wrote: post #29

> Everybody seems to have an opinion on how you do your web dev and how websites and web apps should be structured. It’s true and it leads to many annoying unproductive arguments, IMO the reason is a fundamental lack of a scientific mindset in evaluating techniques and tooling. We don’t have theories or testable hypotheses, we have opinions. On one level I like and agree with the author’s idea that results are what r…

I'm in complete agreement with you. At this point, I also endorse threats of flogging for someone who tries to introduce a new framework to a project after the actual work has started. And actual flogging for the management team if they accept that framework.

As a data point I've just joined a small project which already has a JS framework (Vue) and 2 build systems (1 broken) and the developer has just added React and a third build system. No talk of migration - they're going to run in parallel.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#110

Post by divan »

gen_greyface wrote: post #108
divan wrote: post #107

Web dev community should just acknowledge the simple fact that typesetting engine from 80s (HTML) and legacy hacks built around it (css and js) is not a good foundation for making modern apps. It's like trying to build apps with a spreadsheet cells (it's actually possible, but we don't do it, thankfully) by throwing a lot of abstractions and frameworks on top of it that would hide the ugliness of the foundation layer…

https://www.photopea.com/ this is a webapp

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/3d-engine-entirely-made...

this is Doom engine in Excel

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