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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

#61

Post by rvieira »

I can share my (unsolicited) thoughts FWIW.

I have never been a UI or front-end developer (altough I am professional programmer), but I do enjoy dabbling in making websites and keeping up with mainstream technologies for this area.

I do find that for amateurs like me, building websites is more enjoyable than a couple of decades ago. Deploying static sites was never easier and the tooling was never better. I can make a quasi-professional site with just some Markdown and sprinkling some off-shelf CSS and minimal Javascript and we're done.

Now, regarding professional developers, I look at the pace at which all tech stacks get obsolote and it's quite scary personally. I'm not sure it's fun.

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

#62

Post by hankchinaski »

I am still reluctant to use JS/CSS frameworks. What I learned in 10 years is the fact that I hate learning useless abstractions that will eventually fade within the span of 18/36 months. The joy in web dev for me is creating stuff not learning how to use frameworks.

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

#63

Post by patmorgan23 »

stopcraeting wrote: post #30
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…

It is against the TOS of the largest ISP in my country to even host a server of any sort. Colocation isn't that fun.

There are tens of thousands of hosting providers around the world. You don't have to pick AWS, GCP, or Azure.

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

#64

Post by zerop »

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?

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

#65

Post by mahkoh »

andybak wrote: post #2

> Remix.run gives us the best of both worlds. Still writing your site predominately with JavaScript. [...] This point is stated as if it's a widely accepted truth. Is that really the case? I still labour under the misapprehension that one should aim to use as little javascript as possible.

On the remix.run site it says

>Remix is a seamless server and browser runtime that provides snappy page loads and instant transitions by leveraging distributed systems and native browser features instead of clunky static builds. Built on the Web Fetch API (instead of Node) it can run anywhere.

I found no mention of the blockchain here or anywhere else. Why are they touting their own horn so much if they are clearly not Web3 ready?

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

#66

Post by lemonberry »

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…

"because a good website is the only way to push back to Big Tech and it's practices"

I agree with this. But what really spins my beanie is the amount of power a website gives a single person, small business or non-profit. It's really amazing.

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

#67

Post by abe-101 »

For a while my personal website https://old.habet.dev was the result of some free HTML template that i reused. But I got board if it and wanted to to start a blog. So over the weekend I downloaded WordPress, set it up and wolla a few hours later I have fully functional site with a blog (thank g-d for open source). It was a thrill to get it going. https://habet.dev/2021/12/self-host/ I'd love to hear your thoughts on my site.

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

#68

Post by frankzander »

hankchinaski wrote: post #62

I am still reluctant to use JS/CSS frameworks. What I learned in 10 years is the fact that I hate learning useless abstractions that will eventually fade within the span of 18/36 months. The joy in web dev for me is creating stuff not learning how to use frameworks.

Me too. Also the frameworks deliver a lot of bloat and dependencies which can be a boomerang. For example I did some pages with bootstrap 3 ... for that I had to use a module which modifies the html templates of the CMS. Than the CMS got updated several times but the module is not been updated b/c bootstrap 3 is obsolete. But hey the there is a new module for the new cool guy in town BS 4. So you can't update the CMS or you have to rebuild a large part of the website for the sake of updates. That's totally senseless since it has no advantages for my customers. Yes I can sell it with "you must update because of security but hey nothing changes ..." - something what I would absolutely hate if it's done to me.

I have my own framework - smaller and it fits my way to work. And yes I understand that this would be a other situation with a team (but then you have a guy without soul, moral and honor which is called "the sales guy" who sales everything).

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

#69

Post by randmeerkat »

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…

> Of course you can choose to put your website on AWS and svck on the bolls of Jeff a little. But you don't have to! And that's what all kinds of young devs just miss.

Where are you hosting your websites?

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

#70

Post by denton-scratch »

Pardon me, but I seem to be suffering from terminological confusion.

I'm puzzled by this business of "building" static sites being a process that takes minutes. Perhaps my understanding of the term "static site" is awry; I parse it as a site consisting of HTML markup, JS and CSS, all that code being handmade, rather than generated. If that's right, then a "static" site doesn't need to be built.

I presume it's supposed to be contrasted with a "dynamic site", which I parse as a site in which the code delivered to the browser is not the code that was written by the developer; instead, the developer's code gennerates the browser's code at runtime (but it's still not obvious to me why that should need a build step).

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? That would explain the build step. I can certainly see the sense in layering a meta-language over CSS, but generated HTML is just annoying to my mind (and generated Javascript seems like a recipe for madness).

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