Follow up question : Is that complexity necessary or artificially inflated?
Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
1–10 of 398 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#2This will be a posting, which either receives no to little responses or will have 256 responses within the next couple of hours :)
I am sure, there'll be quite a few who'd argue that this is necessary complexity, but my take on this definitely is the latter - artificially inflated
But it's not only the web. Same happened to Java in the 2000s and is currently happening to Android. Any mainstream Java job is more configuration of Spring containers with a bit of code glue sprinkled in-between than "proper programming". As for Android, just follow a couple of Android forums where plenty of people complain about such complexity and frameworks changing "by the minute"
Aritifically inflated :)
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#3I suspect a lot of it is historical. If you go back a few years there were lots of browser incompatibilities and many limitations in Javascript, CSS and HTML. To work around those difficulties and limitations many frameworks were created. Today many of the limitations of the basic technologies have been fixed but the frameworks are still here, though probably less necessary than ever. But once people have gotten used to doing things a certain way (for example using jquery instead of querySelector) they tend not to change.
This isn't unique to web development. The same thing happened with C++ and Boost, for example, where gradually the language and standard library evolved to include functionality that previously required 3rd party libraries.
But I think far more work and money has been invested in web development than other areas, hence creating a bigger mess.
My impression is that the actual user experience of most web sites, including the big ones like Amazon, has improved very little over the last decade, so it feels like all the effort put into web technologies has, so far at least, not produced a lot of value.
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#4This will be a posting, which either receives no to little responses or will have 256 responses within the next couple of hours :) I am sure, there'll be quite a few who'd argue that this is necessary complexity, but my take on this definitely is the latter - artificially inflated But it's not only the web . Same happened to Java in the 2000s and is currently happening to Android. Any mainstream Java job is more conf…
> with a bit of code glue sprinkled in-between
https://ptrthomas.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/jtrac-callstac...
:)
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#5people expect complicated features
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#6From an application manager/solution manager perspective, I see 2 main reasons and a few smaller ones:
1. more and more complex UI. Things that used to be done in a native app are now in a browser, this has good and bad parts.
2. a lot of show off from the developers side going for overly engineered solutions. Nobody likes HTML+CSS and JavaScript anymore, if there is no cool framework with tons of tooling and dependencies than they are not happy. (yes, I know, flak incoming)
Other reasons are the complexity of dependency chains, the lack of security mindset by having hundreds of dependencies looking for a left-pad, the complexity coming from the testing of these overengineered and overly complex solutions, the move towards hybrid front end-back end management of state, rendering etc. There is also the overstretching of the frontend development role, now a fe dev needs to not just write the equivalent of HTML+CSS+JS but also containers, devops, CI/CD, all that jazz.
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#7> Follow up question : Is that complexity necessary or artifically inflated?
Is Javascript's complexity necessary or artificially inflated? Modern frontend development boils down to a bunch of abstractions on top of Javascript.
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#8people expect complicated features
Complicated features don't require complicated solutions and processes.
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#9JavaScript as an ecosystem and language became much more accessible than ever, with all the toolings and TypeScript, it's easier to build abstractions upon abstractions; and people love to have their own version of abstractions. It's human nature, it's inevitable.
Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?
#10This will be a posting, which either receives no to little responses or will have 256 responses within the next couple of hours :) I am sure, there'll be quite a few who'd argue that this is necessary complexity, but my take on this definitely is the latter - artificially inflated But it's not only the web . Same happened to Java in the 2000s and is currently happening to Android. Any mainstream Java job is more conf…
A lot of programming seems to have turned into gluing a bunch of poorly programmed and documented systems together. I miss one of my previous jobs where I got to build a lot of stuff from scratch.