Back-end languages are coming to the front-end

After having been in this industry for 20+ years, I can pretty confidently say the world of software will never wake up. It's just been an endless cycle of adding abstractions, removing them again, using back end languages on the front end, using front end languages on the back end, using relational databases instead of a key value store, using key value stores instead of a relational database, unit tests over integration tests, integration tests over unit tests, silver bullet framework after silver bullet framework.

My feeling now is that in the greater scheme of things none of the technology choices really matter all that much, the main thing is if the software is written in a clear, documented and maintainable fashion. Unfortunately people will still throw that away and pointlessly rewrite it in a few years, so making the choice to contribute in that fashion is more a matter of professional pride than practical utility. Arguably it's better for your career to let go of that pride and just embrace the constant unnecessary rewrite process.

I do wonder if there are still some corners of software development which aren't like this. Perhaps in public universities or government?

I think no one is going to necessarily disagree with what you’re saying, but I’d also ask what is the point? It’s almost tautological.

Of course this is the case, so does that mean new things shouldn’t be made because it’s been pre-decided it would be a waste? I can’t say I agree with that, even though I agree with the premise that all PLs suck.

Maybe this stuff is just hard, and also maybe part of that is because as humans we’re pretty limited. So I think we just have to deal with it and try. I don’t love front end stuff, for example, and it kind of annoys me at times that everything gets reinvented over and over, to great fanfare no less. However at the end of the day, I realize it’s because we’re limited and one of those limitations is not being smart enough to do everything right the first time. That makes sense and isn’t like a knock on people, just the truth.

And these new frameworks and paradigms that keep getting made indicate to me that things are reaching some stability, but aren’t there yet. Like, a lot of native stuff has been literally miles ahead for years, which is why you don’t really see a ton of innovation in that spaces, aside from adding new frameworks to support new sensors. But you still see stuff getting made to support more privacy aware stuff, which is a shame because it could have been that way from the beginning.

Anyway, I think it’s fine for both to be true: PLs suck because tech is hard and people are limited, and we keep trying new stuff because it’s just both there yet.

(Note: wrote this on my phone so maybe it rambles and is incoherent or has mistakes)

I was going to say that I was surprised htmx wasn't mentioned in the article. It's backend-agnostic and extremely easy to use. Drop in Alpine.js and I think you have a really powerful setup without writing any JS. I've been using this with Go[0] and enjoying it.

[0] https://github.com/mikestefanello/pagoda

I don't think this is the case at all, maaaaybe it's a tad cynical in tone, but I think overall it's a pragmatic and realistic view of software engineering, ESPECIALLY web development.

I say that as someone who is been in the industry since just before the first .com bust, and have seen a lot of this cycle.