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Changing times for web developers

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Re: Changing times for web developers

#51

Post by jfaucett »

ceautery wrote: post #49

A couple of reactions: You guys seem to hate each other a lot, and love javascript frameworks. Me, I've tried to snipe at my fellows a lot less on sites like this, which has improved my online experience, and I prefer to learn standards over frameworks. The kind of discussion going on here is reminiscent of old timey C vs. java vs. perl, or maybe vi vs. emacs slashdot discussions from the late 90s: pointless. Focus o…

"For the comments about the web not being ready for HTML5 yet because it is too young: nonsense"

Although your personal experience may backup this assumption, it simply isn't true when you look at the stats : http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201110...

Re: Changing times for web developers

#52

Post by wildranter »

The web is a mess. Where's the news in that?

Code once and run in all platforms is pretty much a myth no matter the framework you use, including the web ecosystem.

I've lost count of how many times I wished we could run in the browser a decent language like python or ruby. Or describe the data of documents in something more meaningful like JSON instead of HTML. And then there's the DOM, CCSS, and all the browser specific nonsense.

Can I just ignore this crap and code my applications already?

Re: Changing times for web developers

#53

Post by edanm »

czzarr wrote: post #24
edanm wrote: post #15

Does anyone have any recommendations for good REST books? For example, the book cited in the article - is it good? I understand the basics of REST, but I want to get a deeper understanding. Also, I still regularly encounter situations where I'm not sure what the "best" thing to do is (collections of items, linked items, etc. - how to represent this with REST?).

Steve Klabnik's is pretty good: http://designinghypermediaapis.com/ And there is this one http://www.amazon.com/Building-Hypermedia-APIs-HTML5-Node/dp... also which is longer but more detailed. You don't need to know anything about node to understand.

I took a look at Steve Klabnik's a few days ago. Honestly, I couldn't get into it - I'm not sure why, but I felt it was disorganized. I felt there was no way to really jump in from the beginning, get a good ground-level understanding, and then progress to more advanced topics. It felt more like a collection of articles targeting people with various backgrounds and levels.

Maybe I'll be back to it after I've read another resource - it's quite possible Steve's is simply for someone who understands more about these concepts than I do.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#54

Post by johnyzee »

This is against the grain, but it is obvious to me that the way forward for web development is to rise above Javascript and simple DOM mangling, which is what most of these popular tools assist with. Javascript does not scale complexity and manipulating DOM elements directly is both error-prone and a lousy programming paradigm.

We need something in between that offers a sane development model and deals with the complexity and anachronism of the underlying platform. GWT cross-compilation is an excellent example. It has enabled the painless development of complex Javascript-based web UIs[1], with the tool support of any other software development project. This is what I'm going to look to for the future of web application development, not patchy solutions to the complete mess that is barebones Javascript development.

For examples of what I have done with GWT: TeampostgreSQL (http://www.teampostgresql.com), a rich PostgreSQL web interface, and my HTML5 game engine (http://www.webworks.dk/enginetest).

EDIT: By the way, it is only a matter of time until we have complete canvas-based UI libraries, frameworks and tools suites akin to Flex (probably from Adobe, too). When that happens the web will really have arrived as a rich client platform. I would be very surprised if there isn't a few projects in this space nearing completion at this point, since the underlying technology is basically ready.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#56

Post by davewasthere »

mddw wrote: post #32
popopje wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he says at the bottom "And a disclaimer – don’t look at the source code of my web page – I rarely work on that, and is using an old blogger template. lol"

Quality code ages well. Old is not an excuse for crappy or slow, neither you can so easily disclaim your own code. Would you take fashion advices from someone with horrible and smelly clothes ?

Mind you, I know builders who still have unfinished jobs around their house. Car mechanics whose own vehicle could use work. Electricians etc...

I think valid advice is still valid, regardless of whether they practice what they preach. I also know how little time I have to work on my own sites with various project work I've got on...

Re: Changing times for web developers

#57

Post by mgkimsal »

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #37
jasonlotito wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jQuery has had pretty significant traction for 4 or so years now. One could probably assume you already know it. Right? =) > Minifying JavaScript and CSS files isn't new, nor are REST and HTML5. Being new and being widely practiced are two different things. Also, REST is something people still struggle with today, because they assumed they knew it because it's deceptively easy. And HTML5? Really? It takes just 10 s…

I'm going based on the hundreds of web developers I've interviewed over the past few years. These include people with no formal training, through to people with a decade or more of experience. While I don't specifically ask for experience with jQuery in job postings, there have only been a small handful of those candidates who have never used it. But even they have often just focused on using YUI, MooTools, Dojo, or…

The author explicitly called out .NET developers (" and I see a lot of web developers still lagging behind especially in the .NET world.") So do I.

A trip to my local .net user group last month had presenter going over ASP.NET MVC v4 and some of the reactions and comments were... hard to believe. I'm not saying all .NET devs are behind the times, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of them, based on my own anecdotal info from attendance at various conferences and user groups over the last couple years.

We get sucked in to the bubble of HN, and the majority of people we interact with on various boards/forums/etc are indeed aware of these technologies, but they do not (yet?) represent the majority of developers.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#58

Post by wahnfrieden »

johnyzee wrote: post #54

This is against the grain, but it is obvious to me that the way forward for web development is to rise above Javascript and simple DOM mangling, which is what most of these popular tools assist with. Javascript does not scale complexity and manipulating DOM elements directly is both error-prone and a lousy programming paradigm. We need something in between that offers a sane development model and deals with the compl…

Direct DOM manipulation should be a lot cleaner once we have shadow DOM, don't you think? That lets us add abstraction and encapsulation to the DOM.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#59

Post by Osmose »

wildranter wrote: post #52

The web is a mess. Where's the news in that? Code once and run in all platforms is pretty much a myth no matter the framework you use, including the web ecosystem. I've lost count of how many times I wished we could run in the browser a decent language like python or ruby. Or describe the data of documents in something more meaningful like JSON instead of HTML. And then there's the DOM, CCSS, and all the browser spec…

I'm confused about the JSON > HTML part of your comment. Independent of which one is better overall, wouldn't HTML be more meaningful than JSON because it has semantics attached to tags?

Re: Changing times for web developers

#60

Post by cdent »

johnyzee wrote: post #54

This is against the grain, but it is obvious to me that the way forward for web development is to rise above Javascript and simple DOM mangling, which is what most of these popular tools assist with. Javascript does not scale complexity and manipulating DOM elements directly is both error-prone and a lousy programming paradigm. We need something in between that offers a sane development model and deals with the compl…

I _hate_ web apps/sites/services created with GWT. They result in a) overcomplicated UIs b) assets which are completely opaque.

Which runs contrary to the promise of the web: simple stuff that anyone can learn from.

I realize this is an old saw that the young turks of HN probably don't care much about, but it is damn sad.

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