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There's never been a better time to build websites

simeongriggs.dev

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Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#231

Post by hluska »

thomasahle wrote: post #178
_fat_santa wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, tailwind might make css a lot easier, and github copilot might make coding a lot faster... but is this really easier than in the early 90ies, when you could just type into notepad and make a website that didn't require any CSS or images or JS or even more than just the most basic html tags? The thing is you can still do all of this. But we have since built tools and frameworks to let you still do this, while g…

> The thing is you can still do all of this. But we have since built tools and frameworks to let you still do this, while giving you superpowers. I think Svelte is the best example of this. You can create a dead simple site with it and have the result you are talking about I don't know. I just tried to use Netlify to upload a simple static Html/Javascript page I made. Now I'm trying to figure out CORS errors. Pretty…

Welcome to CORS errors, so sorry you made the trip. :)

CORS will eventually click for you and then it will always make sense. Until then, sorry you’re going through the muck.

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#232

Post by Shikadi »

oblio wrote: post #179
ajlburke wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News still uses tables - for layout ! But it always loads super fast, and it just works. We figured out how to display text on a web page decades ago. It's a shame more people aren't just doing it the direct way anymore. (Applications are a different matter obviously)

And if you try it on mobile, it's mostly crap. Let's not treat HTML tables as being some super special ability. If HN were implemented exactly the same but with flexbox or grid for layout, it would be objectively better with no drawbacks I can think of.

Definitely works fine on mobile for me

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#233

Post by n4bz0r »

denton-scratch wrote: post #149
n4bz0r wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or are we talking about writing sites in meta-languages, that have to be subjected to a translation process to yield code suitable for browsers? It's too laborous to handcraft each page, so people would use template engines and things like Markdown -> HTML converters so they would only edit the meaningful part of the page manually. Some also choose to compile a dynamic site into a static site. WordPress plugins all…

Thanks for the reply. > all the advantages of a dynamic CMS I spent ten years making websites using Drupal, which I take it from your context counts as a "dynamic" CMS. FTR, my work was coding; I never got into the trade of making sites by glueing other people's modules together. Well, that kind of site development didn't involve a build step. You could modify the PHP code for a module, load the page in a browser, an…

> If "dynamic" means "the content comes from a database", as in Drupal or Wordpress

"Dynamic" simply means that you aren't serving a static file from your server, but - in case with Wordpress and Drupal - pulling all the requests through a script that processes them, and returns generated plaintext data (HTML/XML/whatever) every time.

If you move the response-generating script/software from your public web server, and only upload plain HTML files there, you get what's called a "static" site.

If you don't get why people add an additional "build" step to turn their "dynamic" sites into "static" ones, here are a couple of common selling points:

- You get to maintain less moving parts on your "production" server and reduce the load

- You can get rid of your public server altogether, and host your "static" site on GitHub pages or a similar 3rd party service. In this scenario, content management and build process would take place on some other (remote or local, doesn't matter), "dynamic" server with the interpreter installed

Hope that clears things up a bit.

Edit: I failed to mention that most static site generators (I heard of) build the entire site at once. A snapshot of the site (an artifact) is being built, thus the "build step" naming.

Edit2: Removed some things that are besides the point.

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#234

Post by foraged_t »

This article struck a lot of chords for me. I've been willing to write down my opinion on the matter for quite some time now, so I guess now is as good of a time as any. My sincere apologies for a lengthy meditation:

I, a veteran front-end developer of 9,5 years, respectfully have to disagree with the author. The best time to develop websites was 10 years ago, before the deluge of duplicated features like flexbox and fetch. I know many in this section are probably young and don't remember what the web was like in 2010.

Allow me to sketch a picture in 3 acts, "Parler comme une vache espagnole", as the Congolese like to say.

Firstly: We finally were getting serious about semantic html. Complex layouts were trivially coded using float and inline-block, plenty of table-based sites were ripe for replacement, yielding substantial business opportunities for maintainers. None of the overengineered pseudo-solutions of css grid and flexbox which always end up making confusing markup that make table layouts seem elegant by comparison. The web is a text medium, why pretend it isn't?

Secondly: I also very much dislike this trend of writing inline-styles. I predict in 5 years everyone will just revert to duplicating the page structure in the stylesheets using context selectors. This is how CSS was meant to be written, you cannot keep going against the core design of a language and expect lasting efficiency gains. The Cascade Is Your Friend.

Thirdly: We were still reeling from the financial crash the U.S. government had created, but webdev was almost unaffected. In fact everyone's nanny and her grand-uncle needed a page. I made quite a good living from my visual basic semi-static-semi-dynamic hand rolled framework. I wish I had learned PHP earlier, I could have made even more. C'est la vie.

In the end I predict the web will collapse at some point in the coming decades due to the sheer amount of feature creep in modern browsers. That deal was probably sealed the moment webassembly was introduced. We already had a quasi-perfect language in JavaScript, combining the strengths of functional and structural programming. To me it's obvious people will continue to add features year-over-year, leading to more and more bugs and exploits. Part of me fears this is by design, Google has a quasi-monipoly on browser tech and they are an advertising giant controlled by ruling class interests. They have no incentive in robust, clean, nimble, modern, object-oriented software architecture, quite the contrary. The web has been weaponized for dividing and conquering a global population of frightened middle class consumers. And history has shown large middle classes never last.

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#235

Post by criddell »

oblio wrote: post #179
ajlburke wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News still uses tables - for layout ! But it always loads super fast, and it just works. We figured out how to display text on a web page decades ago. It's a shame more people aren't just doing it the direct way anymore. (Applications are a different matter obviously)

And if you try it on mobile, it's mostly crap. Let's not treat HTML tables as being some super special ability. If HN were implemented exactly the same but with flexbox or grid for layout, it would be objectively better with no drawbacks I can think of.

What problems on mobile (small screens) do you see?

> no drawbacks

Would it be slower or use more CPU or memory to render?

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#236

Post by criddell »

zerop wrote: post #64
rambambram wrote: post #15

I'm also developing for 25 years, I also really really like websites and coding, but not for the reasons the OP sums up. For me, it's not about all kinds of solved or unsolved technical questions. Today is a very good time to build websites, because a good website is the only way to push back to Big Tech and it's practices. Your website can be build on techniques invented in a time where the dream of the internet was…

I find lots of love for RSS by "innovators" and "experts" of HN community. Despite of it, the thing (RSS) is only going low and I don’t see anything other than RSS readers/mergers invented?

I think RSS is still in heavy use by podcasts.

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#237

Post by canyonero »

The title intrigued me because it _is_ something I agree with. Speaking as a mostly frontend dev, it's been easy to experience a breadth of innovation and new programming/deployment paradigms. Lots of interesting rabbit holes to go down. However, I have trouble agreeing with some of the content from the author.

> Learning materials are almost unlimited

This is something that's hard to argue against. We do indeed have an astounding number of paid/free resources. However, I feel we have some serious challenges ahead of us, though. Trusting the resource is relevant and up to date is harder than ever. It's easier to navigate if you're an experienced dev, but sifting through the plethora of resources can cause more friction than not. To me this point begs the question -- is endless "free" information a feature of new web development frontier? To me it seems this is both a blessing and curse; furthermore, it's not exclusive to web development. Many fields have a glut of information, but the challenge is navigating through good/bad content.

> Frameworks are lifting each other up

I don't find any evidence cited in the article that frameworks are lifting each other up. To me, it's an arms race and it has become more cutthroat as framework developers have realized that they can build businesses on top of them. It does create competition to attract devs concerned about UX/DX and innovation.

Some of the best frameworks in the space IMO (Astro and Redwood for example) buck the trend framework/vendor lock-in, but the author only mentioned frameworks clearly focused on platform adoption.

> CSS is a solved problem

Hard disagree. CSS, the language, itself has gotten much better over the years. Tailwind in not the winner and you should expect that once a new hot CSS framework becomes available, all of the Tailwind hype-crew will disappear and you'll be stuck maintaining/refactoring it away.

Further, Tailwind today is not for everyone. It's not silver bullet. There is still innovation and trustworthy solutions in the space (CSS in JS, CSS Modules), but IMO CSS is an evolving language and not simply a solved problem. Avoiding writing CSS does not solve the problem.

> GitHub Copilot

I think it goes without saying that YMMV on this one. There are still many unknowns and mixed reviews on this one to say if it's a net benefit to building websites. It certainly created some conversation/controversy, but it's not really fair to say that GitHub Copilot make building websites any better. I'm still on hold as to the benefits on this one.

> Content management is limitless

No doubt there are more players in the space, but the author clearly stated bias. I'm glad that these options exist; however, I don't have enough knowledge to say what the limits are. Headless CMSs solve certain problems and may not help or be useful in building many different kinds of websites.

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#238

Post by denton-scratch »

n4bz0r wrote: post #233
denton-scratch wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply. > all the advantages of a dynamic CMS I spent ten years making websites using Drupal, which I take it from your context counts as a "dynamic" CMS. FTR, my work was coding; I never got into the trade of making sites by glueing other people's modules together. Well, that kind of site development didn't involve a build step. You could modify the PHP code for a module, load the page in a browser, an…

> If "dynamic" means "the content comes from a database", as in Drupal or Wordpress "Dynamic" simply means that you aren't serving a static file from your server, but - in case with Wordpress and Drupal - pulling all the requests through a script that processes them, and returns generated plaintext data (HTML/XML/whatever) every time. If you move the response-generating script/software from your public web server, an…

Thanks for the clear explanation.

I understand why one would render the entire database to HTML; that's what we used to do on our servlet-based CMS. What I was unclear about was the static/dynamic terminology. Now it's clear.

Re: There's never been a better time to build websites

#239

Post by rhtgrg »

platz wrote: post #154
hooby wrote: post #92

It's definitely a great time to build websites, but saying they _NEVER_ have been easier to make... I'm not 100% sure about that. Yes, tailwind might make css a lot easier, and github copilot might make coding a lot faster... but is this really easier than in the early 90ies, when you could just type into notepad and make a website that didn't require any CSS or images or JS or even more than just the most basic html…

Is tailwind much better than tachyons?

Tailwind seems to be more mature and better documented. Apart from that, they're pretty similar, so if you're used to one you probably won't get much of a benefit from switching to the other.

I see that the example websites from Tailwind look much better than those from Tachyons, though I'm not sure whether that's just a matter of taste.

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