So much shilling for Squarespace on here since the S1
Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
181–190 of 269 posts
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, you would want to use it. The games and similar mini software just don't have anything comparable to it. The loss of flash is very unfortunate.
I loved Flash, deeply, I learned to program in Flash. But I am slowly in the process of doing a 180 on this, where before I felt like we had lost something with Flash that nobody had ever replicated. People have different things they liked about Flash. I liked the animation-centered workflow (and I still think there's room for innovation in this space with modern tools). I miss the ability to export vector animations…
I suspect some parts of the flash and similar ecosystem is replaceable. My view is more that the "design first" graphical tools are basically no more.
This is more than just games. Basic form based workflows peaked with vba and access. Early 2000's dream of components that you could drag in and then wire up to the side seem to be gone.
Now, in fairness, I lauded their death, to an extent. Jsx is a step up when you don't have a designer you are working with. Css, as a concept, is basically void of you aren't collaborating with users on how to style things.
And I agree that the devops has improved. Within reason. Some things are easier, but that ease brought in a sort of Jevon's paradox where, since it became easier to ship more and more, we now ship way more and more. But, are we delivering more?
And I think that is hard to answer. I think the truth is we are hitting more and more of the tail. Which is good. But individually, nobody takes up now and more of the tail, so it is hard to see.
(Granted, I suspect accessibility is losing to this race. :( Basic affordances that you got with fieldsets, labels, and basic html are commonly a second thought on so many custom components.)
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the my experience as well. For an activist website that I maintain I just use a PHP script to install everything and to ensure that everything has proper permissions. The site uses Wordpress and patching config files in PHP is simpler than in bash. I am glad that I have not bothered with Ansible, as I would most likely ended up with YAML programming which is way worse than bash.
Perl was made exactly for that.
That would require another language to know to maintain the script while Wordpress already requires some PHP knowledge. PHP is very OK for that. The only significant gripe is that even with PHP 7 the language does not have a utility to start an external program directly without going through shell and the need to escape arguments.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I echo this. Currently working on CRUD app in golang. What an absolute mess and much slower than using established technologies.
I don't blame the language tbh. I blame the frameworks and tools (or the lack of) for web development. Look, I love node and javascript. But I can't deny it is is total mistake to use it in a business context for web dev when you have django, rails or Laravel. Same for Go and many other trendy tools.... Reinventing the well is not a good business unless you're in the wheels business.
The language is quite weak. It doesn't even have enums.
I blame the industry who fell for golang's marketing and started shoving golang into places where it doesn't belong.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this is exactly why any of my hobby projects that involve JS are done with plain JS, with as few libraries as possible. I might pull in specific libraries, but I don't want to pull in a giant framework that will be outdated the next time I decide to work on that particular project.
Another thing I find weird is how bloated static typical site generator tools are. The delivery medium of static HTML is timeless. But the odds that a static site generator with dozens of dependencies will still work N years from now? Grim.
One of the reasons I like Hugo: it's a single executable that will basically work forever. There's no need to update to a newer version if the one you have meets your needs.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#186The simple page you could make 20 years ago is the simple page you can make today. With a few minor tweaks, it will work as well as it did 20 years ago. If you want to make a complex web app today, that's easier than it was 20 years ago. The tools are infinitely better. If for some reason you decide to use the tools meant for complex web apps to make your simple page, you're going to feel like everything has gone hor…
Amen. If a static web page does what you need, one should not be unwilling to just make a static web page.
One tiny little extra requirement from the client could make you regret that.
Clients don't care about what tools you use. They care more about flexibility.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#187> setting up the system and maintaining it seemed to be more effort for an experienced person on a small project than doing the work without it.
I love articles like this that put into words what I am feeling but am not articulate enough to put into my own words.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#188HTML without all the warts and boilerplate. No cascading style-sheet. No ribbon. No hamburger menu. No drop downs. No frames. No cruddy forms, no JavaScript, No modes, No show codes. Just live layout and editing with plain, bold, italics, links, underline, strikeout, and text formatting that I used to see built into pretty much every Application on the Mac. The "browser" needs to be a full fledged editor. It needs to provide sensible defaults and guides for layout of text, charts, graphics, animation, and interaction. We had all this before the web. The good parts of retro we want. The bad parts of the web, we can do without.
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish wish wish I could move over to Linux but its font rendering situation is terrible [1] I've tried Manjaro and Ubuntu to no avail. I have no idea what causes it or if people on Linux are not as sensitive to it or its a specific hardware setup which causes terrible fonts but once you read Windows fonts stuff looks so much better to me. Apparently its a hot debated topic but its so obvious to some it seems. [1] ht…
Hah: I am very particular about fonts myself but what bugs me most isn't sub-pixel hinting (which is "good enough" with the latest freetype IMHO) it's the size of fonts. Windows is so far off the mark on 99% of computers and it drives me crazy! Repeat after me: 72pt is one inch tall! 72pt is one inch tall! 72pt is one inch tall! The "point" scale of fonts is actually a precise, real-world measurement like inches, mil…
Where can I read more about how 72pt ~ 1 inch? Where does one g to for a "course on typography"?
Re: Everything Easy is Hard Again (2018)
#190Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast!