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Second-Guessing the Modern Web

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Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#111

Post by MattGaiser »

simonw wrote: post #78
burlesona wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part I think the reason so many web devs put up with the “all-react” (and similar) development experience is basically cargo culting. If you admit you don’t like it, chances are there’s at least one front-end hipster around who will mock you as outdated, and that’s enough to silence most. For the hipsters, the problems of SPAs are hard, and engineers like hacking on hard problems. Also the fact that the…

What a great anecdote. It aligns with my big worry here: we are raising a cohort of front-end developers who don't know how to use plain HTML and forms!

That's what the C devs said about all the people learning Java.

"We are raising a cohort of developers who knows nothing about memory management."

Sure, there are things you do not know if all you know is React, but technological changes make it irrelevant in all but the most niche of cases.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#112

Post by ithrow »

luxphl wrote: post #104
burlesona wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part I think the reason so many web devs put up with the “all-react” (and similar) development experience is basically cargo culting. If you admit you don’t like it, chances are there’s at least one front-end hipster around who will mock you as outdated, and that’s enough to silence most. For the hipsters, the problems of SPAs are hard, and engineers like hacking on hard problems. Also the fact that the…

This is what I meant by gatekeeping; there is common misconception that you have to go looking for a library to solve a problem. And it makes it seem like there's a higher barrier to entry than there is. But the reality is that React is plain HTML and Javascript, in a less error-prone and maintainable package. Everything you can do with vanilla JS you can do in React, but with React you benefit from being forced to s…

React is not the problem, it's fine as a component in a page. The issue is the abuse of SPAs.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#113

Post by userbinator »

luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive.

As a user and developer myself, that's the sort of selfish attitude that really really angers your users.

I sometimes wonder if the people claiming to hate client-side technologies or disable JS in their browsers have actually ever had to build a complex website to put food on their table. My bet is the answer is often no, or they are a contrarian in general.

I've worked on "complex"[1] websites in PHP, all static/server-side rendered; zero need of JS, near instant load times, ultra low bandwidth and server CPU utilisation, and don't even need to think about "browser support" because it'll be usable with anything from the past two decades.

[1] complexity in terms of features and usefulness, not in terms of how much code and resources it needs. Unfortunately a lot of developers seem to think complexity as in the latter is a good thing.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#114

Post by fish45 »

userbinator wrote: post #8

Either you omit some interactive elements on load, or you try really hard to make sure that the JavaScript loads faster than users will click, or you make some elements not require JavaScript to work - like making them normal links or forms. Or some combination of those. I realise I'm in the minority, but I use JS whitelisting, which means that any SPAs I come across in my web searches (a disturbingly large number, a…

I appreciate your comment, but please refrain from referring to general lack of focus as a community as ADHD

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#115

Post by luxphl »

austincheney wrote: post #100
luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

> they're easier to work with and they save us time. I have never seen evidence of this. Its a lie developers frequently mention because it sounds so thrilling to say. Approximately how much time does it save you in estimated hours? Its like asking for a helicopter to take me to work, because supposedly its faster. I'm simply assuming its faster without looking at any numbers or finances.

I truly do not think it's a lie. Not sure why you think it's a thrill. It's saved me hundreds of hours, if not more.

It's certainly faster to use jQuery to change a CSS attribute than it is to setup a React project but what's not considered in that calculation is maintaining the state of that attribute or making changes to the logic in the future. Especially on code you didn't write originally.

If all you have to do is validate a form, sure, use jQuery if that's your cup of tea. But I would still rather use something like React because I know I'm less likely to write buggy code or introduce a regression in the future. To each their own though.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#116

Post by root_axis »

My subjective counter-take: "modern web" is fine and where it lacks it is improving over time. React/Vue/Angular/Webpack are clear improvements over what came before despite the learning curve, which is obviously much overblown considering all the hand-wringing over n00bs using React for their blog.

React is not to blame because someone used it to build a blog, but it's also ok not to make an SPA. It's also ok to filter JavaScript out of your job search so you never have to build an SPA ever again. Lastly, the best part about "the Modern Web" is that the 20 year old approach to building web pages still works just fine, fire up NotePad++ and have it.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#117

Post by newsbinator »

untog wrote: post #30
echelon wrote: post #6

HTML should never have grown into the mutated application runtime it is today. The presentational concerns for documents are different from application rendering. The javascript stack should have been something entirely separate. I strongly feel we should create a lightweight HTML fork that is again document-centric and doesn't allow for all of this javascript nonsense. Something that doesn't allow for stupid custom…

We already know what happens when that system is created, though. Because it’s what the web used to be. And the result was that people hacked around it: rendering entire page structures as static, unresponsive images. And that’s exactly what would happen again.

To be fair, at the time we were trying to implement the print world on computer screens.

People (i.e. stakeholders) weren't used to responsive text and images yet. They wanted to tell the pixels on a web page precisely what to show.

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#118

Post by commandlinefan »

luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

I’ve never used React, but I spent years fighting with Angular, and it seemed like all downside with no upside - I kept expecting the upside to become apparent eventually, but it never materialized... it just made site development take longer, crash more mysteriously, and run slower. Is React really “better” than Angular? That is, does it actually do anything?

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#119

Post by commandlinefan »

conorh wrote: post #81
luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

I disagree. Do you remember the days when J2EE was the hot stuff? Popularity comes and goes and is not necessarily correlated with whether something is a good idea or not. Over the last 15-20 years or so as a web development shop we've gone through Prototype, Jquery, Backbone, Angular, Vue and now React for JS frameworks. We've mostly settled on React lately. Our experience is however that it is wildly overused where…

> J2EE was the hot stuff

Whenever everybody except me seems to love something and I just don’t get it, I remember CORBA...

Re: Second-Guessing the Modern Web

#120

Post by mirimir »

luxphl wrote: post #47

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive. It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G.…

> I sometimes wonder if the people claiming to hate client-side technologies or disable JS in their browsers have actually ever had to build a complex website to put food on their table. My bet is the answer is often no, or they are a contrarian in general.

Anyone who cares about privacy allows minimal JS etc. Especially if they're using Tor. And given Tor's high latency and low bandwidth, sites that require lots of client-server dialogue, and/or push lots of data, are a pain to use.

And yes, I've never built complex websites. Just static HTML. Because mostly they've been Tor onion sites, and that's what works best for them.

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