Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
frankchimero.com
Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
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Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#2Previous discussion from 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16346039
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#3The source for the page is as clear as I expected, which made me happy. I feel the same about programming for applications on PCs... things were simple, then they got complex with the arrival of windows, then simple again with VB6 and Delphi, and now they're a mess again. (Not to mention mobile)
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#4Customer needs for most websites basically haven't changed in two decades.
Outside of a few complex SPAs doing interesting things, structurally we're building the same things we were building back then (blogs, brochure sites etc) — it's just that the way we're building them has become (optionally) much more complex.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#5Frank is right, of course. Staying up to date with the tooling, best practices, and user expectations of the web requires an unreasonable amount of attention if making websites is only a small part of your service offering.
One reason I prefer frontend libraries like Vue and Svelte is they feel closer to the grain of the web (HTMLesque templates with JS and CSS sprinkled in), and provide a reasonable level of abstraction and magic. The learning curve and paradox of choice is also much easier to navigate than React especially for solo devs who aren't working on a huge app with a team.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#6The source for the page is as clear as I expected, which made me happy. I feel the same about programming for applications on PCs... things were simple, then they got complex with the arrival of windows, then simple again with VB6 and Delphi, and now they're a mess again. (Not to mention mobile)
smart to check the source; thanks for pointing that out.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#7> simply npm your webpack via grunt with vue babel or bower to react asdfjkl;lkdhgxdlciuhw
Nice summary. While I understand that yarn was a good thing to integrate frontend dependencies management just like we do it for the backend, Webpack is still a mystery to me. Just trying to add a simple JS library to make it work is a headache sometimes (DataTable with Rails for example).
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#8I think one driver of this cycle is:
1) need for capability that old method doesn't meet, so new tool is made
2) dev working on both simpler and more complex sites, wants everything to use the same tools
3) even sites with simple needs now get done using tools powerful enough to satisfy needs of complex sites
4) experienced dev doesn't see a problem, because they are conversant with those more complex tools, and also don't often get assigned to do simple websites anyway, but anyone doing the (considerably more numerous) simpler websites now is getting their groceries by flying a SpaceX rocket from home to the grocery store.
5) now that websites can do more, and very occasionally do, someone thinks of something else they want a website to do, and the cycle repeats
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#9Customer needs for most websites basically haven't changed in two decades. Outside of a few complex SPAs doing interesting things, structurally we're building the same things we were building back then (blogs, brochure sites etc) — it's just that the way we're building them has become (optionally) much more complex.
In my area it seems everybody wants some kind of web app or VPN. In the good old days things like file sharing and inventory management could be done on the LAN but with COVID everybody is scattered all over the place. My clients have this expectation that they'll be able to use any random smartphone to scan a QR-code in the Phillipines and have that magically publish inventory updates to accountants Texas. Everybody wants to bring their own phone or computer. Everyone wants all their data to be accessible through the web. It's chaos I tell you, and a security nightmare to boot.
Personally I think of the web as a highway: great place for a billboard, not such a great place to be storing or mutating sensitive information.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#10The delineation of this argument is what made me switch to Linux. On Windows, things that should have been getting easy were getting harder for me: software management was getting worse, updates were getting worse, and everything that should "just work", just wouldn't. My experience on MacOS was just as bad, with all of the 32-bit apps I used gone in the wind. Now the 64-bit apps are up on the chopping block, and I had to look for other options.
The learning curve for Linux was larger than Windows or MacOS, but I only learned the truth. By cutting away abstraction, I can actually understand what my system is doing, and be a better citizen of my operating system. Linux is arranged masterfully, and makes the Windows filesystem look like a joke in comparison. It's also faster than any of the Macs I own, with the freedom to plug in a modern Nvidia GPU and play whatever games I want.