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Why is modern web development so complicated?

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Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#11

Post by slx26 »

heyoni wrote: post #2

I don't know, but I do know I would rather fix a race condition on a multithreaded application than figure out how flexbox works or even understand all the different parts of the DOM.

Heh. I kinda felt: "hey, I agree with that", so I started asking myself why. What's the difference? Somehow, it looks like the difference is that on one side you have a very complicated problem but in a potentially well defined and bounded environment, and on the other you may have "smaller" problems, but on an environment so vast and complex that's kinda impossible to assert that you are doing things "properly". There are so many parts always changing at the same time!

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#12

Post by redleggedfrog »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #7

Because web developers have massive a chip on their shoulder about not being """real""" developers. So now we have meme frameworks and transpilers and hysterical build toolchains all for a platform for sharing documents.

Sad that you're voted down. I'm a developer and I agree with the sentiment. Web browsers are being used as a run time.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#13

Post by the-pigeon »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #7

Because web developers have massive a chip on their shoulder about not being """real""" developers. So now we have meme frameworks and transpilers and hysterical build toolchains all for a platform for sharing documents.

I've been working as a full stack web developer for the last 15 years during this transformation and this couldn't be further from the truth.

No full stack developer feels they aren't a real developer. But I think more than anything the full stack's have been the drive of a lot of this complications because all these complications make everything way easier for us.

Web development today is easy (compared to 15 years ago) once you know this toolchain. And for professionals, tools that take a long time to learn but increase productivity tremendously are much better than tools that are easy to learn but slow to use.

Of course we'll figure out how to simplify this toolchain over time. But things have been improving across the board for professionals.

It is unfortunate that the barrier to entry seems to be raising even higher. But a trade-off we seem to be fine making.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#14

Post by swiley »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #9

Because we're no longer making websites, we're making apps. Sure if you just need a simple website, make it from scratch, but good luck maintaining a full blown app using jQuery. It's not just web development that is hard. You can't honestly say any toolchain on the desktop side is any easier. That said, web development is getting easier now that the dust is settling and only a few major frameworks are used. Get star…

You can’t get simpler than Python and tkinter (or just strait TCL/tk.)

Packaging these without depending on preinstalled software is hard (you probably shouldn’t even bother trying on Linux, everyone there expects installing weird stuff to involve using either git or a container anyway.)

As far as I can tell the main reason people don’t use it is that it can’t make iPhone apps.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#15

Post by eswat »

tschellenbach wrote: post #10

It's complicated because the bar in terms of user experience went up (or so they say) and now everyone wants a SPA. Because of this you now have a generation of devs that only knows how to build SPA. I'm actually thinking to move some stuff from Django to Gatsby/React setup just because everyone knows React, and a lot of our new devs don't know Django/Python.

I think we’ve done a great job of convincing each other within our tech bubble than everyone wants a SPA. Not sure the general public cares for our enthusiasm though.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#16

Post by amiga-workbench »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #12
amiga-workbench wrote: post #7

Because web developers have massive a chip on their shoulder about not being """real""" developers. So now we have meme frameworks and transpilers and hysterical build toolchains all for a platform for sharing documents.

Sad that you're voted down. I'm a developer and I agree with the sentiment. Web browsers are being used as a run time.

It's completely maddening because the domain has an incredible amount of complexity before you go inventing more to pile on.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#17

Post by dpau »

slx26 wrote: post #11
heyoni wrote: post #2

I don't know, but I do know I would rather fix a race condition on a multithreaded application than figure out how flexbox works or even understand all the different parts of the DOM.

Heh. I kinda felt: "hey, I agree with that", so I started asking myself why. What's the difference? Somehow, it looks like the difference is that on one side you have a very complicated problem but in a potentially well defined and bounded environment, and on the other you may have "smaller" problems, but on an environment so vast and complex that's kinda impossible to assert that you are doing things "properly". The…

For me it's more related to why i became a developer- i love coming up with elegant solutions to interesting, challenging problems. trying to figure out why some inane CSS rule isn't working in an old version of IE due to some arcane non-compliant vendor-specific implementation just isn't very fun. (But thats also why i use frameworks like bootstrap and bulma.)

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#19

Post by maximp »

This is a wonderful and helpful article. A similar post that's really helped me is "What's in a Production Web Application?" by Stephen Mann: https://stephenmann.io/post/whats-in-a-production-web-applic...

The insane number of tools and processes was the motivator behind Hackterms (https://www.hackterms.com) - the Urban Dictionary for programming terms, and a sort or modern Jargon File. We're now at ~1200 definitions and I reference it regularly.

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