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Changing times for web developers

amazedsaint.com

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Re: Changing times for web developers

#101

Post by jebblue »

natural219 wrote: post #99
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 agree with the gist or your post, but as others have pointed out, GWT is essentially depricated and really not the right direction to go. I think the angle that TypeScript is taking may prove to be more fruitful.

>> GWT is essentially depricated and really not the right direction to go.

Where does it say that on the GWT site?

https://developers.google.com/web-toolkit/

Re: Changing times for web developers

#102

Post by jebblue »

skrebbel wrote: post #63
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 feel you, but so far I haven't seen any such solution that isn't full of leaky abstractions. As far as I've come to understand, GWT is no exception. What's the point of a high level powerful tool if you need to understand the underlying technologies and the transformations to it well in order to use it?

>> What's the point of a high level powerful tool if you need to understand the underlying technologies and the transformations to it well in order to use it?

What on earth are you talking about?

Re: Changing times for web developers

#103

Post by woah »

politician wrote: post #98
jarek-foksa wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building UI libraries on top of canvas feels like reinventing the weel, HTML/SVG/CSS already provide you advanced APIs for accessability, text layout, theming and drawing. All you really need is a tiny abstraction layer.

But here's the thing: CSS is a stone soup of non-local, action-at-distance effects -- it's "goto" programming. HTML lacks decent layout primitives (border layout, grid layout) because it's a document-oriented abstraction. It's just really obnoxious to get a single screen application look working correctly on all browsers. So, I'd welcome a reimplementation of, say, WPF on canvas. Something that works without Microsof…

CSS is not that hard. Many developers simply put off doing it at any cost, then throw together a messy unorganized stylesheet and blame the language.

I'll agree with you on the layout shortcomings, such as using excessive floats etc. But once flexbox is fully implemented as a standard, this will become much easier.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#104

Post by 1123581321 »

johnyzee wrote: post #82
lopatin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ragarding your edit: A startup called famo.us( http://famo.us ) is focusing on exactly this (canvas based UIs) however I'm not completely sold that this is the future. It's an awful lot of wheel reinventing. They're doing it in the name of solving performance for HTML5 apps and for creating apps with rich UIs which would be more similar to interfaces we see today in games rather than traditional DOM based UIs. Howeve…

I need it specifically for games, building an interface on a canvas without even layout managers or mouse click aware components feels like the stone age, so I am in the market for a wheel actually. Though it does seem like a bit of a waste as the other poster also said.

I thought the menu pattern for canvas-based games is to use DOM elements and display them above canvas.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#105

Post by yen223 »

jlas wrote: post #95
davewasthere wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yes, but when great web developers on HN are a dime a dozen, I don't want to waste time on content that isn't polished.

The biggest irony: the HN site itself can hardly be considered 'polished'. I mean it still uses the tag!

Re: Changing times for web developers

#106

Post by yen223 »

Toshio wrote: post #2

I couldn't help but notice the self-aggrandizing "most valuable professional evah" logo front-and-center on this guy's blog, so I feel compelled to add the 7th tip to his list. Here goes. #7 - Learn the value of humility.

I have learnt the true value of humility: it gets you nowhere.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#107

Post by dreamdu5t »

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #12

"Changing times"? What exactly is he talking about? Many of the things he mentioned have been pretty standard, even among the least-knowledgeable web developers, for years now. jQuery has had pretty significant traction for 4 or so years now. Crockford's work is extremely well-know, as well, and has been for some time now. Minifying JavaScript and CSS files isn't new, nor are REST and HTML5. The times did change, but…

Yeah, seriously. Anybody who's worked a "real" web design job in the last 2 years has had to use these technologies and practices.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#108

Post by amazedsaint »

balloot wrote: post #93
amazedsaint wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About JS MVC frameworks - It's about scaling your development teams by putting a re-usable pattern in place so that things will jell together. HTML5 - My point was, understand the parts you can use now. Optimization - Again, do it when you are ready to do it.

You can scale development teams and put re-usable patterns in place without pushing all your templates and view logic to the client. That's what libraries like Backbone are made to do, and I would agree it is generally overkill to implement a site that way.

Was talking about leveraging a suitable, existing library that follows a MV* pattern, not about creating your mygreatnextjsmv*.

About implementation - definitely depends on use cases. Anyway, learning them won't hurt anyway.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#109

Post by dreamdu5t »

mddw wrote: post #11

I'm always amazed to see how people who give advice (and good ones in this case) are totally unable to follow them on their websites. 296 http requests. 1.85mb transfered. Yslow grade D. So yeah, these are good advices. In fact, the OP should follow 'em if he wants to "survive".

Every web designer blog post ever.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#110

Post by lopatin »

1123581321 wrote: post #104
johnyzee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need it specifically for games, building an interface on a canvas without even layout managers or mouse click aware components feels like the stone age, so I am in the market for a wheel actually. Though it does seem like a bit of a waste as the other poster also said.

I thought the menu pattern for canvas-based games is to use DOM elements and display them above canvas.

That works fine to an extent, but sometimes you want your menus integrated with your game and have consistent graphics and animations and so on. I used dom elements for snaketron, but in hindsight I think it felt tacky (it might partly have been because I used Bootstrap). For most games, which are more complicated, I can imagine it would be a pain to maintain dom menus.
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