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

baldurbjarnason.com

171–180 of 245 posts

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

#171

Why are tech choices having such an impact on the experience to begin with? Aside from small apps, the web developer is just the guy making the magic happen, there should be an actual product owner somewhere who is making decisions on experience. It's up to the devs to make the experience happen, but poor design is a different problem than what framework you wrote the code in.

> who is making decisions on experience Product Owner: "Let's remove the Save button and instead simply save every time the user changes the value". Developer: "No".

...followed by a 1 hour debate on slack and a series of meetings with an ever increasing number of non-technical managers before a likely unsuccessful outcome.

Arguably worth trying anyway, but let's say I want to say "No" to 3 of these new misfeatures per week. Do I still have time to do any work? Probably not. So I'll pick my battles.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling you will long before experience other problems that makes likely you have to migrate to a different storage system before you hit that limit.

Given it's ~2 billion rows for every person the planet I reckon so. Other than Facebook who has 2 billion rows for every person the planet (tongue in cheek).

Telemetrics and sensors data could (at least theoretically) produce billions of row per hour per single sensor.

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

#173
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you even tried building a shelf without a screw driver? It literally falls apart after one day of usage

Nails?

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

#174
post #148
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The migration is often also a source of problems in itself. There's nothing wrong with neither Vue or React, but adding a second one of those for no reason deserves the flogging thing that the grandparent poster is talking about. Build systems... well they're a dime a dozen and in Javascript all build tools kinda suck (yes, including Vite), but still no excuse for having two.

Curious why you suggest all JS build tools suck... previous company I was at had .NET, Java (backend), golang, iOS, Android and JS (react) builds, that all compiled, ran unit tests, packaged and deployed to relevant targets. The react build was the least problematic by far (though we did get bitten on upgrading the host OS which upgraded node to a version incompatible certain older packages being used, but it didn't take too long to fix). Accepted, there was probably a little less functionality in that component than the mobile apps , but iOS was far and away the most problematic, FWIW).

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

#175
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking to me how little data there seems to be to support what many consider to be "best practice". About the only real data point I see thrown around is that bugs per LOC being fairly constant. Thus, you get people saying long, two-page functions are bad and should be broken up. But never have I seen someone backup such an exhortation with data. Let alone more nebulous rules like "objects should be open for e…

It is there. E.g. The book Accelerate! by Forsgren et.al. explains, scientific, what methods and concepts produce better and worse software. In an accessible way. There are numerous papers on how TDD does X to your software or team. Numerous theses on how static typing causes more or less Y and so on. Yet here we are, ignoring all that and discussing the pro's and cons of TDD based on a YouTube video, a blogpost, an…

Do those papers all agree? And what's the right course of action if, for instance, everyone in your team hates using TDD and threatens to resign or switch teams if you attempt to enforce it? Though surely it's more likely that something like "TDD" isn't an either-or proposition, and even if the evidence clearly shows the effectiveness in particular scenarios or when done in a particular manner, its not a given that more TDD is always better, and hence there's still benefit to discussing the pros and cons.

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

#176
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking to me how little data there seems to be to support what many consider to be "best practice". About the only real data point I see thrown around is that bugs per LOC being fairly constant. Thus, you get people saying long, two-page functions are bad and should be broken up. But never have I seen someone backup such an exhortation with data. Let alone more nebulous rules like "objects should be open for e…

It is there. E.g. The book Accelerate! by Forsgren et.al. explains, scientific, what methods and concepts produce better and worse software. In an accessible way. There are numerous papers on how TDD does X to your software or team. Numerous theses on how static typing causes more or less Y and so on. Yet here we are, ignoring all that and discussing the pro's and cons of TDD based on a YouTube video, a blogpost, an…

[deleted]

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

#177
post #153
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life got more complicated since introduction of smartphones and tablets - it's probably order of magnitude harder to do decent mobile app than desktop one: 1) you have smaller screen estate and have to split some forms into multiple page wizards ( on desktop if you lack space you just popup yet another window wherever it popups) 2) you have to support different screen orientations (portrait, landscape) 3) you have to…

Yes, this puts me solidly in the niche, I couldn't care less about mobile or tablet.. They're fine devices for.. I don't know really, making calls and scrolling facebook.. But for anything with writing involved, or.. input in general.. for any period of time.. I'll never be that hip, and I get that I'm "in the wrong", but that does not change my opinion that what the world needs is more stationary workstations with l…

I'm fairly sure you're preaching to the choir here

Worrying about making it work in mobile is an external requirement that arises due to the world we live in, not because of funsies. If someone could say "fuck supporting the shitty options" without bleeding a metric-fuck-ton of money for it, they would

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

#178

If we ended javascript, 3/4 of these crazy disagreement will be gone. And no one will be seen as anti-react / anti-js anymore.

Better yet, end the web and the internet and there would be no disagreements at all about anything web related. The only for disagreements you'll have will be with the people in your immediately vicinity. And to solve that, I propose another solution: End all human life, and then we've solved every single problem of the world. No racism, no sexism, no bigotry and no problems for as far as the eye can see.

Yep, I would start at a small inner most of generalization.

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

#179
post #73
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frameworks are not tools. You select technologies based on their fit for the requirements of the web app.

Frameworks have a direct impact on UX though. How many React monstrosities are snappy and responsive? Certainly none that I've used.

I could say the same about almost every web app that gets rendered on the server because every tiny step of interaction needs a network round-trip.

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

#180
post #167

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…

I think the argument is different. Let's say you use a basic HTML Golang app backed by SQLite and replicated to a secondary with Litestream, all running on cheap bare metal ARM servers, and therefore your website is simple, usable, never goes down, and costs $20/month to run. I have no idea if this is actually good, but let's agree that there's some idealised system out there that would be a lot better than what we h…

> because they have nothing better to point to.

Well - they do. For example, HN is running on a simple bare metal machine, with another one waiting for emergency.

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