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I miss the programmable web (2021)

matt-rickard.com

141–150 of 180 posts

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#141

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 Being able to work on simple things without feeling like they are useless, pointless or perceptibly outdated.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…

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Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#143
post #85
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can't scrape HTML out of a rendered bitmap. It's not the only mode WASM can be used, but often all the rendering happens in the compiled code and the page only receives a series of images to display on a canvas. It's Flash all over again.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#145
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Probably Tailwindcss.com, then?

No, like "the website X is heavily obfuscated but I wish I had a userscript that could make Y modification". I work on runtime code modification tech, and am mostly known for my work on iOS and jailbreaking. Someone saying "there exist apps that use this weird compiler that are difficult to patch" isn't useful: I need a specific app and a specific target like "the Orchid app is using Flutter, which has its own weird Dart to native compilation step, which is making it almost impossible for me to use the tools we already have available to add a button that automatically builds multi-hop accounts".

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#146

On a related note, Chrome has removed its user stylesheet feature years ago. I've often asked myself why we then still need this "cascading" of style sheets. It seems to have degenerated into a feature for web developers who can't make up their minds, and pushing conflicting styles to every browser for late evaluation, negatively impacting energy consumption. Or maybe they want component-like behaviors from their thi…

Isn't this just how technology progresses? Things start off as amateur pursuits but once a field becomes profiting making then professionals move in and industrialise things.

Industrialization under no-competition doesn't lead to professionalization (if you associate more than just "being paid" with it). When there are no clear metrics of what's good or bad, you can live with that as an amateur and trust your common sense and taste. However, when you become professional, in the face of no clear metrics you have to invent some (or your manager will invent some just for you). These invented metrics are then gamed and gamed again, as it doesn't matter if you actually meet them or not, since they're meaningless to begin with.

By "no-competition" I mean for the professionals/employees. There's so much demand for programmers and so much money allocated for them that the limited supply makes it trivial and common to be a professional today with skills on the level of a script-kiddie from the '90s.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#147

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…

If the only reason you build websites is to get paid then you're part of the problem. Separate your personal and professional lives. Or do you not enjoy building on the web for fun?

i've been doing this since 2007 as a full-time career. I think my interest peaked around the ajax/jquery era and has been in steady decline ever since. i'm just bitter about becoming a web dinosaur.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#148
Whether they're gone or not, I definitely want _more_ of these. I've had great success with shared Tampermonkey scripts at work, augmenting off-the-shelf tools my team uses with conveniences specific to our team. For example, automatically extracting relevant bits within noisy logs when browsing CI results, or providing buttons that kick off narrow re-runs or link to relevant source files. CSS injections are great too, a very lightweight way to improve the accessibility and usability of tools.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#149

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.

It is also trivial to turn storybook into visual regression tests.

Re: I miss the programmable web (2021)

#150

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…

I strongly disagree that it has no value.

If I interviewed a developer and they showed me an impressive website/application that was built without a framework, I would probably be more impressed than if they showed me one that was built with one. An understanding of the basic building blocks of the platform is always helpful, just like I would consider knowledge of lower-level programming and different programming paradigms a huge plus, compared to someone who's only ever done web.

I would, of course, also be sure to ask them about why starting from Adam & Eve is only rarely appropriate in a business context, how it's important to write code that others can pick up and understand. I expect anyone but the most junior candidate to understand that no tech stack is perfect, and that it's all about trade-offs, and that the tech is a means to an end. We don't hire people to love a tech stack (most of them are pretty unlovable, to be frank), we hire them to, as quickly as possible, get good software in front of paying users.

If you come in and demonstrate that you can take a thorough understanding of HTML, Javascript and CSS up to something resembling a dynamic, modern, responsive web application, and if we can have an intelligent discussion about what the frameworks and infrastructure bring to the table, you're obviously miles ahead of someone whose knowledge stops at copy-pasting React snippets and googling the WebPack error.

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