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I miss the programmable web (2021)

matt-rickard.com

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Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#81

Post by vntok »

debesyla wrote: post #49
saurik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind giving me an example of something you've wanted to do that is really hard (or even nearly impossible) due to the these issues (so I have a standing concrete challenge case)?

Facebook and Instagram ads. Impossible to block through CSS now as the CSS classes are dynamically generated + it's even hard to pick out sponsored posts using .js too.

From js, simply find all tags that have a url containing "utm_medium=paid". Once you get them, for each tag element go up parentElements until the parent is . Then remove the child.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#82

Post by nperez »

Userscripts are alive and well! I use Tampermonkey in conjunction with an Amazon seller extension (which I won't name because I'm not really using it as intended). The extension displays, among other things, a flag icon next to a product listing indicating the seller's country. My script hides the extension's entire UI and replaces it with a country filter. It can be really useful to filter down to US sellers only, and only see brands that are well established here

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#83

Post by christophilus »

saurik wrote: post #54
quickthrower2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try it on a Tailwind & React based site. Lucky for a site like that it used NextJS so it has a lot of JSON state dumped in plaintext.

I am asking for a concrete task challenge, not a kind of site or technology.

Probably Tailwindcss.com, then?

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#84

Post by knighthack »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #55

I miss the "immediate web". Being able to work on simple things without feeling like they are useless, pointless or perceptibly outdated. Now it's install node, install git, install npm, install a gazillion packages, run localhost then hope everything works. Build command, clean command, eject commands, deploy command, pre processors, post processers, documentations full of so much jargon that i feel burnt out lookin…

I remember the first time I heard the word "tree shaking" for CSS.

...I genuinely wondered what tree was involved. Took a Google search before I understood that it was industry jargon, which meant this: to reduce/minify code.

There are many similarly opaque things in the world of web-development.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#85

Post by lgas »

phil294 wrote: post #43
saurik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind giving me an example of something you've wanted to do that is really hard (or even nearly impossible) due to the these issues (so I have a standing concrete challenge case)?

I have another fun challenge, try to completely disable the auto-zoom-feature on Google Maps. Last time I tried, I stepped through 20 stacks of obfuscated nonsense before eventually giving up. But tbh I can't really imagine any scenario that is near impossible - except for WASM driven web pages which will break just about anything :(

why would WASM driven pages be any different to deal with than non-WASM driven pages?

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#86

Post by drdec »

tiborsaas wrote: post #79
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #55

I miss the "immediate web". Being able to work on simple things without feeling like they are useless, pointless or perceptibly outdated. Now it's install node, install git, install npm, install a gazillion packages, run localhost then hope everything works. Build command, clean command, eject commands, deploy command, pre processors, post processers, documentations full of so much jargon that i feel burnt out lookin…

You can still drag and drop a folder to the Netlify UI and it's published immediately. How you produce the static assets is up to you. Of course, having to work with multiple devs on the same project adds lots of complexity to minimize risks and conflicts.

> having to work with multiple devs on the same project adds lots of complexity to minimize risks and conflicts.

That's when you link a GitHub repo to Netlify.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#87

Post by lgas »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #65
saurik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am asking for a concrete task challenge, not a kind of site or technology.

Ok scrape data from manifold.markets

Does it change a lot? Because it's pretty easy as is... eg.

% curl -s https://manifold.markets | htmlq '#__next > div > main > div.items-center.flex.flex-col > div > div.gap-8.flex.flex-col > ul > div > div > div > div.relative.flex-1.gap-3.pr-1.flex.flex-col > div.peer.absolute.-left-6.-top-4.-bottom-4.right-0.z-10 > a'

will get you all the anchors for the stories on the home page, and from there it's easy to get any other part of the stories.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#88

Post by splintercell »

knighthack wrote: post #84
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #55

I miss the "immediate web". Being able to work on simple things without feeling like they are useless, pointless or perceptibly outdated. Now it's install node, install git, install npm, install a gazillion packages, run localhost then hope everything works. Build command, clean command, eject commands, deploy command, pre processors, post processers, documentations full of so much jargon that i feel burnt out lookin…

I remember the first time I heard the word "tree shaking" for CSS. ...I genuinely wondered what tree was involved. Took a Google search before I understood that it was industry jargon, which meant this: to reduce/minify code. There are many similarly opaque things in the world of web-development.

Tree shaking doesn’t mean to minify the code but remove the CSS classes from the payload which are not being used anywhere. Proper term is dead code elimination (DCE).

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#89

Post by splintercell »

debesyla wrote: post #49
saurik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind giving me an example of something you've wanted to do that is really hard (or even nearly impossible) due to the these issues (so I have a standing concrete challenge case)?

Facebook and Instagram ads. Impossible to block through CSS now as the CSS classes are dynamically generated + it's even hard to pick out sponsored posts using .js too.

I am pretty sure that there is a team of engineers whose job is to office obfuscate ads on Instagram and Facebook.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#90

Post by madeofpalk »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #76
blauditore wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you build web pages without the whole JS frameworks and Node circus, they are pretty durable. Those helpers were invented because people started to build empires (complex applications) on sand (the web), so they are pretty useful for larger projects, but simple websites can still be easily built with plain HTML/CSS/JS.

yeah but there is no value, personally in building projects like that anymore, you can not use them in your portfolio or to progress your career - i was going to build a personal site, but realised it would probably act as more of a hindrance to me, because potential clients/employers would see that it was not using latest new js fad. if it was up to me i would never touch those things, but that's what the market has…

Interviewed and hired many developers. Not once was the tech stack of their personal website, if they had one, ever brought up or considered.
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