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Web Development: A Crazy World

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Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#81

Post by Swizec »

eranation wrote: post #39
rpeden wrote: post #30

I've found that a large subset of programmers share the same trait as a large subset of photographers: they become so obsessed with tools that they lose sight of the fact that the end product is what matters at the end of the day. For example: there are many people who spend thousands on cameras and gear, and still take terrible photos. There are many developers who spend a lot of time keeping up with what they think…

Author of the original rant here, funny it became viral and translated to Chinese (and back to English) :) The rant was made as a comment here: http://www.zemanta.com/blog/i-bet-you-over-engineered-your-s... Picked up by a Tilo Mitra: http://tilomitra.com/the-crazy-world-of-code/ And as discussed here in HN before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226990 The point of it was actually: it's impossible to always kee…

Author of original post here ...

... this is a crazy trip for a comment to make! And I still think most people over-engineer and over-think their startup tech.

Customers don't care what you use, as long as it solves their problem. The rest just helps with recruiting I guess.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#82

Post by jzwinck »

artursapek wrote: post #75

1. Go to Home Depot. 2. Pick the tools you like. Get a good hammer, saw, adjustable square. 3. Leave Home Depot and go get good with them. 4. If something breaks or doesn't perform a task you need, go back to Home Depot to supplement your toolbox.

You forgot the laser-guided dado cutter, and the telescoping illuminated wet-dry vac with AM/FM radio.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#83

Post by metaphorm »

cygwin98 wrote: post #79
coldtea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, variety also means: 1) scattering of effort (each framework gets less total attention by fewer people), 2) duplication of effort (besides what is unique in each, tons of effort is spend in implementing mostly the same things), 3) Many half-finished frameworks 4) Worse documentation and less books/manuals/video tutorials (see 1, 2) 5) Less chances of getting an answer to a framework problem in forums/irc/SO (again…

Agree. The current war of numerous Javascript MVC frameworks reminds me of the situation of Python Web Framework a few years ago, the community was confused by so many choices to select from. In the end, nobody wins, even the ultimate winner Django lost the opportunity to become mainstream. In that sense, the merging of Rails and Merb seemed to be a wise and successful strategic move in hindsight.

Django is pretty mainstream. Its not as popular as Rails but its hardly a maverick.

I think the reason why Python never went all in on a single web framework is just because the Python community itself is much larger and more diverse than the Ruby community. Consequently there were alot more opinions and alot more people willing to develop those opinions into separate projects.

Maybe you're right that there are advantages to converging on a single framework, but I'm not so sure. Rails is omakase, so if there's some part of it you don't like its not really easy or a good idea to change it, and you don't have any other options in Ruby. Django is also omakase but if there's some part of Django that you really disagree with you can just move to web.py or flask or pyramid. these are all built on the common core of Python's wsgi module so these are just different opinions on how to accomplish the same task.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#84

Post by blablabla123 »

The original post shows definitely one thing: decision making is an important skill.

Obviously every framework has its pros and cons. But always focussing on the cons and restlessy looking for even hotter solutions makes you more worry about technology choice than about your code. It makes you worry more about whether you did a sane technology choice than it makes you solve actual problems.

At the end of the day it is better to focus on one chosen technology and get the most out of it. If its cons matter, one will see soon enough and learn how to circumvent. This gives deeper understanding of the technologies and give tools to solve problems.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#85

Post by MojoJolo »

Swizec wrote: post #81
eranation wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of the original rant here, funny it became viral and translated to Chinese (and back to English) :) The rant was made as a comment here: http://www.zemanta.com/blog/i-bet-you-over-engineered-your-s... Picked up by a Tilo Mitra: http://tilomitra.com/the-crazy-world-of-code/ And as discussed here in HN before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226990 The point of it was actually: it's impossible to always kee…

Author of original post here ... ... this is a crazy trip for a comment to make! And I still think most people over-engineer and over-think their startup tech. Customers don't care what you use, as long as it solves their problem. The rest just helps with recruiting I guess.

Sometimes I love over engineering my projects. It helps me hone my skills and keep updated. But I limit my self to one side. E.g. Back end or front end.

In my case, it's back end. API and stuffs. I'm also trying to limit my self in using different kinds of language. My current Back end stuff today are Grails for web app, Scala for non web, Redis, memcached, MongoDB.

Don't ask me about front end. I'm not updated with it by choice.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#86

Post by freework »

rpeden wrote: post #30

I've found that a large subset of programmers share the same trait as a large subset of photographers: they become so obsessed with tools that they lose sight of the fact that the end product is what matters at the end of the day. For example: there are many people who spend thousands on cameras and gear, and still take terrible photos. There are many developers who spend a lot of time keeping up with what they think…

Thats true of almost any hobby/endeavor. I know some people who call themselves "guitar players" but all they ever do is go to the guitar shop every weekend to exchange gear. They never actually play their instrument.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#87

Post by sergiotapia »

static_typed wrote: post #61
davidw wrote: post #8

Most of the 'mess' I see is the current state of Javascript frameworks, which are in the Cambrian explosion phase of things. I'd just use Rails as a default for most things I do these days, and if it's not a good fit, evaluate other technology.

Given the constant flood of Ruby and Rails security problems of late, it would seem better to start new projects with something a bit better engineered.

I understand where you're coming from. But don't you feel that the security fixes are coming out in a timely fashion and once they're shut, they're gone for good? (At least that particular exploit)

Slowly but surely Rails will become robust because of this.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#88

Post by johnmw »

artursapek wrote: post #75

1. Go to Home Depot. 2. Pick the tools you like. Get a good hammer, saw, adjustable square. 3. Leave Home Depot and go get good with them. 4. If something breaks or doesn't perform a task you need, go back to Home Depot to supplement your toolbox.

What if your job is to build model aircraft?

(Kidding, its a nice analogy but I think its also good to do some research on the tools you might need first or you might waste a lot of time. I once wasted a month of development time because I picked the wrong toolbox for the job).

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#89

Post by redeemedfadi »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #20
davidw wrote: post #8

Most of the 'mess' I see is the current state of Javascript frameworks, which are in the Cambrian explosion phase of things. I'd just use Rails as a default for most things I do these days, and if it's not a good fit, evaluate other technology.

I was just about to post "Cambrian explosion" as an metaphor for the state of javascript libraries. There are good reasons to get the HTML formatting off the server and into the client, so the new style JS is all going in the right direction. So another metaphor: All these frameworks are trying to solve the right problem in the right direction - which one will win out eventually - who knows, but even if you hitch a r…

What will be funny is when we move everything back to server-side once we don't have network latency/bandwidth issues.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#90

Post by metaphorm »

hipsters_unite wrote: post #58
danso wrote: post #53

I'm far from an expert coder compared to most on here...but...what's the big deal? Once you've grokked server-side code and framework, is it really that hard to move from Rails to Sinatra or even to Django? Once you know databases, how hard is it to switch from SQLite to Postgres or to even Mongo? Same goes with Javascript frameworks. Now, I'm referring to the scope of what a web-developer needs to know to interface…

> "The hiring market is segmented by too many technologies for me to claim to be an expert at?" I think that's a concern to many new programmers (myself included) when looking at the pace these tools and frameworks are coming out and then maturing.

some companies hire only for particular skills and experience with the technology they already use. these companies are looking for quick and dirty hires to do work on day 1.

other companies hire for the human himself/herself and will understand that a good hire will be able to learn new technology at a rapid pace and the important things have to do with learning ability, perspective, and drive.

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