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JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

jonoalderson.com

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Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#21

Post by phendrenad2 »

Lapz wrote: post #15

I often see people say “JS is unstable,you’re always rewriting your code for the latest and greatest framework” and I always wonder where do you work? If I told the people I report to I can’t deliver that for you because we’re rewriting the app, I’d be out of the door soon. The JS ecosystem is like any technology ecosystem, things change over time but you don’t have to chase the trends, be pragmatic about what you fo…

There was a time between 2015 and 2020 when framework fatigue was a real thing. People were jumping between angular, ember, react, vue, and if you were unlucky enough to choose react, Crazy Mad Scientist Dan Abramov was telling you YoureDoingItWrong(TM) every other tuesday and prompting everyone to rewrite their app in shame (even though they wrote it the way that was trendy LAST tuesday).

Since then, things have settled down a LOT.

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#22

Post by JimDabell »

I’m a big fan of the web. I think a lot of people misunderstand its design and fail to grasp how important various aspects of its architecture contribute to its success. It’s very common for people to see it as nothing more than a delivery system for imperative code to run without installation on clients. That’s where the overuse of JavaScript comes from.

But JavaScript itself isn’t bad. JavaScript was an incredible improvement to the web. It’s when people pass over the web in favour of writing JavaScript apps that the problems arise. I think it would do good for people who spend all day writing React apps to spend some time working with things like HTMX to break out of that mindset and get a bit of perspective on how the web is supposed to work.

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#23

Post by vasachi »

Lapz wrote: post #15

I often see people say “JS is unstable,you’re always rewriting your code for the latest and greatest framework” and I always wonder where do you work? If I told the people I report to I can’t deliver that for you because we’re rewriting the app, I’d be out of the door soon. The JS ecosystem is like any technology ecosystem, things change over time but you don’t have to chase the trends, be pragmatic about what you fo…

Usual arguments for "upgrading" are:

* We can't hire specialists for older frameworks.

* We can't generate positive hipe over older technologies.

* New technologies are better, so we will deliver features faster.

In reality, it's almost always resume-driven development.

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#24

Post by onion2k »

hakanderyal wrote: post #14

> The result? Broken back buttons. Image bloat. Inaccessible markup. URLs that don’t behave like URLs. Metadata that disappears. Content you can’t copy. Buttons you can’t keyboard to. Modals that trap you. Scroll positions that reset for no reason. Headlines that shift mid-read. Analytics that don’t match reality. Preview environments that lie. And pages that load… eventually. -- None of that is the fault of Javascri…

None of that is the fault of Javascript, it's on the people building them.

This is logically correct, but I don't think it's true in the spirit of the argument. Browsers makes it very easy to deploy a broken website. They're incredibly tolerant of faults. Consequently there's no accountability for problems.

If browsers didn't try to display broken apps in a sort-of-working-but-not-really way there'd be a lot fewer broken apps.

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#27

Post by phendrenad2 »

The problem is the web sucks. CSS sucks. HTML sucks. Javascript is perfectly fine, actually. Browser security sucks. CORS sucks. CSP sucks. SVG sucks. Favicons suck. Shadow DOM sucks. Video controls suck. Web audio sucks. WebGPU sucks. W3C sucks. Chromium sucks.

You know what I'd do to be able to build a website using SwiftUI or GTK?

Given the terribleness of the web, naturally people will use bloated UI frameworks and build tools to even slightly avoid using them directly.

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#28

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

glutamate wrote: post #6

> Spoiler alert: we didn’t get app-like performance. We didn’t get better user experiences. Not sure about that, I'll take Gmail and fastmail any day over outlook and evolution

Is your problem with outlook specifically or with email apps in general? Wanna tell us more about it?

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#29

Post by dudeinjapan »

onion2k wrote: post #16
kachapopopow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's just wordpress and captcha can only be done in js (half the requests).

This is the 'no true Scotsman' argument. "Websites that use JS are terrible and broken." "Your website uses a ton of JS." "JS is fine in my case. It's all those other websites that are broken!" You can implement a captcha without JS. You don't need jQuery or jQuery-migrate in 2025. The site is using Quill for some typography tweaks that could mostly be done in CSS. FWIW I don't think there's anything wrong with the w…

No true Scotsman would ever use Javascript… I guess I need to buy a kilt!

Re: JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

#30

Post by dudeinjapan »

farseer wrote: post #5

That is because the actual alternatives to JS such as Flash, Silverlight and Java Applets were much worse. Native apps are bound by the platform's walled garden and practically undiscoverable, hence the need for web apps.

Come on now. Flash, security holes aside, was way better! It even had ActionScript which was essentially JavaScript.
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