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Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#31

Post by treeman79 »

quxbar wrote: post #11

I get the impression making a web app was considerably more difficult for a solo developer pre-jQuery. For a while we had an explosion of choices, and ultimately things coalesced around React and similar paradigms. Meanwhile the per-capita productivity has been skyrocketing as increasingly sophisticated cloud services provide everything from raw key-value storage to turnkey caching and auth solutions. Is it more comp…

Internet explorer made life a nightmare. had to have if statements around most everything.

Corporate was very slow to roll out new versions. So we could get to be years behind. Things like custom Active-x apps required specific versions.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#32

Post by codeptualize »

I disagree with the premise, things have gotten a lot simpler.

I think you need to make distinction between website and web application. The latter came later and is by definition a lot more complex, I assume this is mainly where the premise originates from.

But having gone through building websites with frames, tables, png's for box shadows and border radius, jQuery and php based web apps, and having spend many days making my grunt/gulp/webpack config work and supporting IE, I can with great certainty say things have never been easier than they are now.

Now, is it necessary [to build webapps]; Yes. Usability expectations have gone up, the level of details and polishing has gone up, more interactivity, and more sophisticated visual elements. Webapp now do things native applications could not do back in the day.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#33

Post by eterm »

claudiulodro wrote: post #16

Because the browser nowadays is an "operating system" that needs to be capable of handling all manner of dynamic software: maps, video, image editors, games, etc. I haven't done Windows development, but I assume browser-based development complexity will continue trending towards essentially the same complexity as developing e.g. a Windows program.

TWenty years ago windows development was a lot simpler than modern browser applications. Fire up visual studio and create a new winforms project.

You could literally drag and drop your way to a modest application with only minimal programming 'under the hood' for the business logic.

I still don't think anything has surpassed the usability of winforms for a developer just wanting to get something done.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#34

Post by eloisant »

nfRfqX5n wrote: post #5

people expect complicated features

...or developers think that. Or they pretend customers will care because they really want to play with their new framework.

Nowadays everything is a single page app, and for 90% of website/web apps it would be better (and orders of magnitude simpler) with good old server rendering. It would also be much faster.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#35

Post by wellanyway »

mojuba wrote: post #12

It's artificially inflated and I'm seeing this in almost all areas, not just frontend. Some of the projects I've seen could have been reduced in size multiple times with no effect on the outcome whatsoever. In one instance I rewrote a GUI app and made it 15 times smaller (!), that's my absolute record to date. Been wondering for years, so you need to actually be inventive to add unnecessary complexity, it's not that…

This. While engaging in flame wars about React I have noticed that all of them start with a peculiar definition of done that, lo and behold, necessitates not only React but whatever feature if the month they are busy ductaping to it.

What we need is an honest conversation about what USERS think about spa apps, flat design, etc while holding very obviously interested parties from skewing the narratiwe.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#36

Post by dmitriid »

People wanted applications and app-like behaviour in the browser. And browsers are uniquely uneqipped to deal with that:

- the core if the web has been, is, and will forever remain a system of displaying static text with a couple of images. You as much as look at it funny, and it needs to re-layout and re-render the entire screen

- there's no standard library to speak of

- there are no standard widgets and controls to speak of (https://open-ui.org/ is twenty years too late)

- there are no easily accessible ways of handling state

- almost every single API that the web provides is either underngineered, or overengineered, or badly designed, or all of them together

- the web rarely provides a comprehensive and/or a generic solution or an API. It's a hodgepodge of one-off hacks often needed to cover deficiences in other hodgepodge hacks

So, to make the web even remotely app-like, you need to solve for all these issues, and that's before you even start writing a single line of app logic.

And on top of that you have language evolution and people wanting to use features of tomorrow today.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#37

Post by ojr »

Most of the state of application used to live on the backend but now that has transition to the frontend. Dealing with the state of application is difficult because of edgecases and side effects, React can handle many different domains mobile, tv, and website. Of course development will be more complex with more target domains.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#39

Post by eloff »

eterm wrote: post #33
claudiulodro wrote: post #16

Because the browser nowadays is an "operating system" that needs to be capable of handling all manner of dynamic software: maps, video, image editors, games, etc. I haven't done Windows development, but I assume browser-based development complexity will continue trending towards essentially the same complexity as developing e.g. a Windows program.

TWenty years ago windows development was a lot simpler than modern browser applications. Fire up visual studio and create a new winforms project. You could literally drag and drop your way to a modest application with only minimal programming 'under the hood' for the business logic. I still don't think anything has surpassed the usability of winforms for a developer just wanting to get something done.

The browser is powerful enough now that one could replicate this if one wanted to. I don’t think it’s the pinnacle of software development, but it had some advantages.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

#40

Post by dmitriid »

eterm wrote: post #33
claudiulodro wrote: post #16

Because the browser nowadays is an "operating system" that needs to be capable of handling all manner of dynamic software: maps, video, image editors, games, etc. I haven't done Windows development, but I assume browser-based development complexity will continue trending towards essentially the same complexity as developing e.g. a Windows program.

TWenty years ago windows development was a lot simpler than modern browser applications. Fire up visual studio and create a new winforms project. You could literally drag and drop your way to a modest application with only minimal programming 'under the hood' for the business logic. I still don't think anything has surpassed the usability of winforms for a developer just wanting to get something done.

Nothing surpassed Delphi from early 2000s. Not even WinForms.
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