I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps • Hacker News Board

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#51

Post by hoten » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:02 AM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #24

hoten wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you confusing SEO with performance? Lighthouse does have a SEO category but it isn't exposed through the PSI web app.

It's a very specific kind of performance. It doesn't measure long running apps, interactions and visualizations. When you play a video game you might have to download and install it first, which might take quite a while, but we don't say "this game has bad performance" because of that. Lighthouse measures that first second or first few seconds after you visit a site at position 0/0. It doesn't care about how much blo…

(Note: I work on Lighthouse).

> Lighthouse measures that first second or first few seconds after you visit a site at position 0/0. It doesn't care about how much bloat comes after you scroll. It discourages you to pre-load resources (including JS and CSS) which you don't _immediately_ need for that first hit.

This is true - or rather, was true. We're making lots of progress on a mode to measure performance beyond the initial cold load. Check out https://web.dev/lighthouse-user-flows/

> It is really about content and marketing websites with low interaction.

Well, that isn't our intention at all, but I can see how to might come to that conclusion. We've only recently started investing in how to measure interaction. See https://web.dev/inp/

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#52

Post by rektide » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:02 AM UTC

omarhaneef wrote: post #28

The author complains that developers argue about their tools and methods, insist on their favorite techniques, but produce (more) worse apps. Particularly for the amount of time and effort expended on developing the apps. The thing is: the debates aren’t naive. They’re exactly trying to workout the details. When someone says, hey forget postgresql and just use SQLite, and someone else says good luck if you hit n rows…

We can tackle so-called "essential" problems forever & make no progress actually making the web better though.

This post impacted me & resonated strongly: it's a great notice to be more alert as to whether we're talking about details or something core & significant. Devs can have these discussions deep in the weeds, but it's kind of a farce & disservice when the petty implementation details flood & overrun the topics of what we're making & how we've enriched the media-form.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#53

Post by iratewizard » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:05 AM UTC

jdougan wrote: post #46

travisgriggs wrote: post #40

> They keep encountering highly flawed websites or web apps and are assuming that regular web devs can do something about it. This is the reality that has been grinding me down of late. Nor do I find it limited to only web stuff. I see it in embedded and other market areas. I was excited over the last few decades to see the field of programmers swell. I have always loved the craft of good software development. I was…

If the dev pool of 2022 was like the dev pool of (for example) 1994, just larger, you would have been right. But the software goldrush came and attracted many more who were just in it for the money or just weren't as thoughtful. Scale matters, upscaling people is hard.

I've got a strong suspicion that there would be more productivity if the bottom half of developer (or more) left the industry. Control for seniority, of course. The majority of 1Xers produce outright bad code, contribute disproportionately to tech debt, don't read user stories thoroughly, don't test their code properly, and generally get in everyone else's way.

The most productive thing our industry could do is create an anonymous blacklist of devs to avoid and code samples of their shit work.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#54

Post by croes » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:07 AM UTC

omarhaneef wrote: post #28

The author complains that developers argue about their tools and methods, insist on their favorite techniques, but produce (more) worse apps. Particularly for the amount of time and effort expended on developing the apps. The thing is: the debates aren’t naive. They’re exactly trying to workout the details. When someone says, hey forget postgresql and just use SQLite, and someone else says good luck if you hit n rows…

I disagree. Web devs aren't discussing characters and plots but instead argue which typewriter to use.

Better tools don't make better apps just like word processors don't make better books. The best web dev tools are worthless if the UX is bad.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#55

Post by atmartins » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:07 AM UTC

jdougan wrote: post #46

travisgriggs wrote: post #40

> They keep encountering highly flawed websites or web apps and are assuming that regular web devs can do something about it. This is the reality that has been grinding me down of late. Nor do I find it limited to only web stuff. I see it in embedded and other market areas. I was excited over the last few decades to see the field of programmers swell. I have always loved the craft of good software development. I was…

If the dev pool of 2022 was like the dev pool of (for example) 1994, just larger, you would have been right. But the software goldrush came and attracted many more who were just in it for the money or just weren't as thoughtful. Scale matters, upscaling people is hard.

I'm not sure the ratio is that different. In 1994 how many different browsers, connection speeds, phishing scams, competitors shipping fast forcing you to do similar to stay competitive, accessibility considerations, etc. If memory serves, it was dramatically less than now.

This thread of comments is kinda weird to me, there's like a romanticized view of old timers or something, and the problem must be the young, money hungry and unenthused. It feels like boring old internet gatekeeping and is not insightful.

There is a totally different world in tech now than in 1994. Tons of stuff and often optimized for mean time to recovery. I crave quality too (believe me) but I think shipping fast and breaking a few eggs (not directly but that's essentially what you're left with) is what is asked of engineers in 2022.

All of my peers seem to care about quality and we do our best but even in the days of buying software on floppy disks, bugs existed.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#56

Post by _carbyau_ » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

travisgriggs wrote: post #40

> They keep encountering highly flawed websites or web apps and are assuming that regular web devs can do something about it. This is the reality that has been grinding me down of late. Nor do I find it limited to only web stuff. I see it in embedded and other market areas. I was excited over the last few decades to see the field of programmers swell. I have always loved the craft of good software development. I was…

> This is the reality that has been grinding me down of late. Nor do I find it limited to only web stuff. I see it in embedded and other market areas.

sigh We have hardware doing billions of instructions per second, capable of transporting at least 500Mb/s within my computer, 120+Hz screens and yet:

- Windows 10 desktop -> opening Start menu = 5 seconds wait.

A trite example but once you look it is everywhere. This stuff grinds my gears every damn day.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#57

Post by rektide » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:11 AM UTC

jdougan wrote: post #46

travisgriggs wrote: post #40

> They keep encountering highly flawed websites or web apps and are assuming that regular web devs can do something about it. This is the reality that has been grinding me down of late. Nor do I find it limited to only web stuff. I see it in embedded and other market areas. I was excited over the last few decades to see the field of programmers swell. I have always loved the craft of good software development. I was…

If the dev pool of 2022 was like the dev pool of (for example) 1994, just larger, you would have been right. But the software goldrush came and attracted many more who were just in it for the money or just weren't as thoughtful. Scale matters, upscaling people is hard.

The scope of problems being solved is much higher. Adding a two or three libraries- jquery and a plugin or two- and not giving a toss about performance was indeed easy. Few auxiliary tools were required.

Back then, we all could have a pretty strong hand on the wheel of our websites & how they functioned, at a detailed level. It was feasible, for the scope was small. But now, we all use package managers, we all use bundlers, we all use minifiers, we all use production builds, we all use tree shakers. Any one of these concerns is a significant realm that tends to have significant people-years worth of work poured into it. The need for these capabilities distances the practitioner from the core truth of the media: we no longer see clearly what we are doing, we no longer have personal stake or control in the processes.

There's still a strong latent desire to re-simplify, to de-configure the web, to de-build it. We had hopes that EcmaScript Modules would help, we had hope HTTP2 Push would be a viable delivery platform, for un-tooling, but we never really made an earnest go at tackling the optimization problems that all brought in; works like Cache-Digest never de-facto materialized or got made-available. Front-end architecture similarly has been dominated by high-abstraction top-down frameworks, namely React, which complects in a wide host of assumptions/abstractions that distance the practitioner from the actual media-form. Just as ESM was a hope that we might get back to understandable, without lots of framework/tools, WebComponents too presents a hope that we can strip away a lot of the specific complexity & find a more inter-modular, general & understandable grounding. The web can & should be at a similar power level to where it is, more so, but in more honest, accessible, direct manners than the crafted-of-necessity deep layering we cobble with today.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#58

Post by layer8 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

altdataseller wrote: post #7

How does the OP define “good” web apps? Apps that are pleasant to use? Apps that solve a problem?

My take would be: Apps that do the job they’re supposed to do in service of the user, without friction for the user. The pleasantness for the user doesn’t come from the app proper, it comes from the user being able to achieve what they want without friction. It’s a bit like what is often said about film music: The best is the one you don’t notice is there.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#59

Post by lawgimenez » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

cmroanirgo wrote: post #47

lawgimenez wrote: post #39

I'm a little confused on the article. I remember developing web apps where I could just start a LAMP on my machine but times have changed and we should accept that everything is getting complicated. He should try mobile development, it's much more worse in my opinion. I'm a mobile dev fyi.

Agree. At this point I'm a little bewildered at what iOS and Android has brought to mobile development that wasn't already in j2me, at least in a preliminary way. At the start of iOS it was "look, pretty icons" and "no more permission popups". But, most platforms had icons anyway, and all the apps now get the annoying popups for the same set of permissions (except for networking) that was the bug bear of j2me (at the…

This is true, I started with Java ME too with Eclipse IDE then proceeded to integrating Blackberry SDK and then it started from there. Mobile development's phase right Blackberry disappeared never recovered, it went 0 to 100 real quick from that very moment.

I was still hacking some J2ME for a Nokia app then Samsung released an Android phone and I was like wtf is an Android.

Re: I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps

#60

Post by notpachet » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:33 AM UTC

iratewizard wrote: post #53

jdougan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the dev pool of 2022 was like the dev pool of (for example) 1994, just larger, you would have been right. But the software goldrush came and attracted many more who were just in it for the money or just weren't as thoughtful. Scale matters, upscaling people is hard.

I've got a strong suspicion that there would be more productivity if the bottom half of developer (or more) left the industry. Control for seniority, of course. The majority of 1Xers produce outright bad code, contribute disproportionately to tech debt, don't read user stories thoroughly, don't test their code properly, and generally get in everyone else's way. The most productive thing our industry could do is creat…

> anonymous blacklist of devs to avoid and code samples of their shit work.

Sounds like Github Copilot.