Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I miss the programmable web (2021)

matt-rickard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 180 posts

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#91

Post by madeofpalk »

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 Being able to work on simple things without feeling like they are useless, pointless or perceptibly outdated.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 is not a web-development thing. Wikipedia says the term originally came from Lisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_shaking

Every industry has things that have names that you might need to learn.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#92

Post by lanktastic »

schwartzworld wrote: post #26
mg wrote: post #22

I miss: bookmarklets and user scripts I use bookmarklets all the time. I can't imagine living without them. For example, this is how I read HN: https://twitter.com/marekgibney/status/1551483561621979136 The bookmarklet takes me to the latest HN post I have not seen. When I click it again, it takes me to the next I have not seen. As soon as I see a post I have seen before, I know I am up to date. I can't imagine readi…

I use then to automate annoying workflows for FE development. Sometimes you need to click through a series of things to get the UI into the state you need. A bookmarklet is a perfect solution.

Check out Facebook’s Storybook if you haven’t already. It’s life changing when you don’t have to click through an app to get the state you need.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#94

Post by cutler »

andyp-kw wrote: post #72
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 Being able to work on simple things without feeling like they are useless, pointless or perceptibly outdated.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…

For frontend stuff, moving away from the JavaScript ecosystem to C# with blazor has really improved my motivation.

At the expense of unrealistic download size.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#95

Post by Kye »

pjerem wrote: post #20
grishka wrote: post #10

Huh? Userscripts are dead according to author, but I apparently never got the notice because I have about a dozen of those things installed right now. Three of them are for YouTube because it's this much annoying as is.

They aren’t dead but with more and more build systems that obfuscate everything in the page, including CSS classes and IDs, it’s sometimes hard to do something really useful.

There were these things called API spies back in the VB6 days that would figure out the appropriate way to refer to whatever you clicked. The one from PatorJK would even produce code to do things to it from downloadable templates.

It's still around: https://patorjk.com/blog/software/

I wonder why no one ever made something like this for the web.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#96

Post by lobstrosity420 »

lanktastic wrote: post #92
schwartzworld wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use then to automate annoying workflows for FE development. Sometimes you need to click through a series of things to get the UI into the state you need. A bookmarklet is a perfect solution.

Check out Facebook’s Storybook if you haven’t already. It’s life changing when you don’t have to click through an app to get the state you need.

Storybook is awesome. Just wanted to clarify is has nothing to do with Facebook or Meta.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#97

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #90
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i just will assume most hiring gatekeepers will make superficial judgements about the appearance of your portfolio work and many developers will do the same about your code.

not everyone is willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#98

Post by naillo »

anonyfox wrote: post #27
ozten wrote: post #3

I thought this would be about the glory days of “Mash-ups” using web APIs. Flickr + Twitter + Delicious tags to create a new experience. 2007 ? What a period to be a hacker!

If we could *force* all the walled gardens to have an open API again, like some of them had back in the day, that would solve soooo many issues. Make all the data free to use for everyone, while ML techniques get even more accessible, and let people build products with that - where they also have to provide APIs for their enriched data.

I suspect part of why they closed open APIs down is because it was abused (for spam or similar). Not sure how to convince them to open it back up in light of that.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#99

Post by pjmlp »

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…

The immediate is how I code in private Web projects to this day, at work is another matter.

If I had a vote on the matter, it would still be fully SSR with a little bit of vanilaJS when need.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#100

Post by pjmlp »

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…

When doing consulting, many costumers only care they get a Website, not how it works underneath.
Post reply on HN