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

Things engineers believe about Web development

birtles.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 254 posts

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#171

Post by Waterluvian »

mjburgess wrote: post #11

> “Web development shouldn’t need a build step” Everything running in a browser is interpreted. There is no reason for webdev to require a build step, and it largely does so because JS standards haven't delivered anything around static typing. Even a "this syntax is valid but ignored" would enable IDEs to provide checks via LSPs, but for no-build running. Build steps and development iteration overhead is something to…

I wouldn’t want to have either 100 lodash dependencies or ship a ton of functions that aren’t used. Tree shaking is a pretty nice build step.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#172

Post by amadeuspagel »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #6

The refrain against the "we should go back to MPA apps with server rendered HTML" is often "well what about Figma and Photoshop", which of course, yes those don't really work in the MPA, server rendered HTML model. The problem isn't so much those but how most developers lump themselves in with the incredibly interactive sites because it sounds sexier and cooler to work on something complex than something simple. The…

When you vote on a HN comment while writing a reply, it reloads and you lose your reply. That's the kind of problem you have with MPAs, even if you aren't building the next Figma.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#173

Post by m3047 »

I spend a lot of time with DNS (it just happened, man) and I see the same general thing where a lot of intention and expertise is imputed to others. True systems thinking around large systems is rare. Buffer Bloat (and the lack of progress in remediation, and the lawfare and near literal acts of congress due to misattribution and misunderstanding of the problem) as this thing slouches along and utters its phlegmatic growl could be emblematic.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#174

Post by JackMorgan »

quest88 wrote: post #126
JackMorgan wrote: post #17

Last month a client asked me to build them a crud form only using old school C# MVC with Razor templates. And by golly it was much harder for me than just doing it in React+Next. I had some nostalgic notion that MVC was going to be a smooth ride. That all this JS cruft was slowing me down. Then I needed a search bar, then validation, then I kept running into weird surprises with Razor templates. After a month I ruefu…

Are you surprised that it took you longer with a tool you don't know compared to a tool you do know? IMO, that should be expected.

More surprised at how much I'd forgotten and how it can be pretty fussy to use. I had in my mind a nostalgic feeling of it being so much easier and faster.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#175

Post by flashback2199 »

rramadass wrote: post #137
inopinatus wrote: post #54

The tech sector is riddled with such divisions of perspective. ”In a high-level language like C...” - chip designer ”In a low-level language like C...” - application programmer

Anecdote: Coming from the application side i had always thought of C as a low-level language but in one company where i worked with chip designers who only did Verilog, i was gobsmacked when in my conversations with them they said they didn't know higher-level languages like C and cannot program in it.

We're not gobsmacked when you don't know Verilog, so I'm not sure why you think you can be gobsmacked some chip designers don't know C...

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#176

Post by ryanbrunner »

jameshart wrote: post #168
ksec wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my brief look at my log and history usage and generally my estimate, 95%, or dare I say 99% in terms of my traffic could be a MPA. Currently the only site I go regularly that are JS SPAs are Feedly, Youtube, Discourse Forums and Twitter. And apart from Twitter the others could have been MPAs and still be perfectly fine. ( Although Youtube is debatable ) I did like to think 80-90% of the web population browsing u…

"Currently the only site I go regularly that are JS SPAs are ...." Are you sure about that? Well made SPAs don't look like apps. They navigate seamlessly and instantly because they're not redownloading and parsing all their header and footer HTML, re-constructing a brand new DOM, loading and reinterpreting CSS, and bootstrapping a new Javascript runtime on every click. Look at https://react.dev/learn , click around t…

"Well designed SPAs look and feel like a MPA" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement when MPAs are less complex to build.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#177

Post by ryanbrunner »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #162
ryanbrunner wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the picture in picture stuff when you navigate away too. I recently did that with a MPA, and it was a not straightforward experience to get right.

It's kind of an awful experience though? Do people actually want their videos to follow them? If I'm navigating away it's because I'm done, it actually makes me kind of angry that the video chases me.

In my case it was a podcast player, so primarily audio, where playing in the background is a perfectly normal thing to do and you might want to browse other content while playing.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#178

Post by rramadass »

flashback2199 wrote: post #175
rramadass wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: Coming from the application side i had always thought of C as a low-level language but in one company where i worked with chip designers who only did Verilog, i was gobsmacked when in my conversations with them they said they didn't know higher-level languages like C and cannot program in it.

We're not gobsmacked when you don't know Verilog, so I'm not sure why you think you can be gobsmacked some chip designers don't know C...

Because until that point i didn't know much about HDLs like Verilog/VHDL and how they were at a completely different level than "standard" programming languages like C/Python/etc. My then assumption was that since C was a low-level language and chip designers were working at a low-level they would be able to program in Assembly/C in their sleep and that they would be able to initiate me into the mysteries of how my C code was actually translated into electrical signals in the processor circuits. It was a big disappointment for me when i realized we were living in completely different worlds.

I actually made a deal with some of them to teach them C/C++ in return for them teaching me Verilog/SystemC but unfortunately that never came to pass. I even got me a couple of Verilog/VHDL books and FPGAs to teach myself what i call "Actual and True Hardware Programming" but haven't really sat down with it. Hopefully sometime in the future so i can finally know everything from the bottom-most layer to the top-most.

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#179

Post by jameshart »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #176
jameshart wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Currently the only site I go regularly that are JS SPAs are ...." Are you sure about that? Well made SPAs don't look like apps. They navigate seamlessly and instantly because they're not redownloading and parsing all their header and footer HTML, re-constructing a brand new DOM, loading and reinterpreting CSS, and bootstrapping a new Javascript runtime on every click. Look at https://react.dev/learn , click around t…

"Well designed SPAs look and feel like a MPA" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement when MPAs are less complex to build.

What part of 'insanely snappy' did you miss?

There's NO NEED for a browser to reload and reconstitute the entire page context on every interaction! It's a crazy way to architect applications!

Re: Things engineers believe about Web development

#180

Post by flashback2199 »

rramadass wrote: post #178
flashback2199 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not gobsmacked when you don't know Verilog, so I'm not sure why you think you can be gobsmacked some chip designers don't know C...

Because until that point i didn't know much about HDLs like Verilog/VHDL and how they were at a completely different level than "standard" programming languages like C/Python/etc. My then assumption was that since C was a low-level language and chip designers were working at a low-level they would be able to program in Assembly/C in their sleep and that they would be able to initiate me into the mysteries of how my C…

Ok, I guess that's fair. Having worked at one of the large chip makers, I can tell you there are plenty of people who know C and Verilog, you just weren't talking to any of them. Those who need to do, and those who don't, don't. It's certainly an industry with high degree of specialization.
Post reply on HN