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Why is modern web development so complicated?

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Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#601

Post by hhas01 »

afarrell wrote: post #73
TotempaaltJ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here's the trick to not building shit software: don't build shit software. It's a crude way to put it, but the reality is that you can build bad websites in any framework (including old PHP stuff and new JavaScript hype). You can also build good websites in any framework. It depends way more on the organisation or team developing it than on the libraries you use.

The trouble is that "don't build shit software" isn't actionable advice on how to avoid building shit software. For someone seeking to be a more skillful web software engineer, there's no information there.

The key to being a competent software developer is really, really simple: Learn the Business. Because if you can’t/won’t/don’t understand the problem domain, how can you expect to solve problems in it?

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#602

Post by Nyandalized »

fizixer wrote: post #198
reaperducer wrote: post #38

It doesn't have to be complicated, if you get support from above. A few weeks ago I launched a new web site for a health care company. HTML, PHP, CSS, and MySQL. No frameworks. No javascript. No garbage. It replaced a site that was a mess of javascript libraries on top of frameworks on top of a half dozen jquery version and on and on and on. The company administrators, doctors, practitioners, etc... are so happy with…

Questions for PHP, and MySQL folks (not meant in a negative way): - PHP: A few years ago I heard about how PHP was needlessly complex. I wonder what the recent status of the programming language is. Specifically, do experienced PHP programmers stick to a subset of PHP, as in "PHP: The good parts"? (similar to "Javascript: The good parts"). (side note: As a diehard python person frustrated due to latest versions becom…

There is a free version of MySQL called MariaDB. PostgreSQL is a very viable alternative.

It has different philosophy, and needs a little getting used to, so it's not as easy as simply lift-and-shift

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#603

Post by marcus_holmes »

reaperducer wrote: post #38

It doesn't have to be complicated, if you get support from above. A few weeks ago I launched a new web site for a health care company. HTML, PHP, CSS, and MySQL. No frameworks. No javascript. No garbage. It replaced a site that was a mess of javascript libraries on top of frameworks on top of a half dozen jquery version and on and on and on. The company administrators, doctors, practitioners, etc... are so happy with…

How do you cope with copy changes from marketers?

This is my problem at the moment. I have a nice static site, but I'm facing demands from the marketing team to use Wordpress so that they can make copy changes to the site without having to go through a developer (or learn any HTML).

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#604

Post by realmod »

mark_and_sweep wrote: post #79
efficax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

javascript rules, and you can't build truly interactive sites without it (try to build a refine-as-you-type search bar with just html and css). Here's my hot take: JS is good and has made the web better.

Here's my hot take: Instead of waiting 20s for your truly interactive site with refine-as-you-type search bar to load, which, when finally loaded, will lag so much on my mobile connection that it is just plain annoying, I will use your competitor's site which loads within 1s and has a plain old field for search. Not every site needs to be truly interactive. Not every site needs JS. Unless you're building a 3G+ or des…

And everytime I want to change anything at all or see updated data, I'll have to reload the page. JS has objectively made the web better.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#605

Post by nidu »

tyingq wrote: post #311
jjcm wrote: post #84

Because it had to play catch up to native apps feature wise due to demand, while building upon a base that wasn't intended for that, while serving the same app to literally thousands of different environments and expecting it to work perfectly. Thus, growing pains and overly complicated frameworks/plugins/other bits slapped together to address the core issues which ballooned the complexity. But we all knew that. What…

"What's more impressive is that things are getting less complicated." Over what timeframe? While it certainly had its own issues, the HTML5/jQuery pairing easily fit into your head. Notwithstanding the benefits, React, packers, routers, and the 10 other things you bundle, is a cognitive load. Doesn't help that the routers and 10 other things don't come with React, and so, choices vary across teams.

I'm not sure comparison is correct. If you want routing in jQuery app - you will have some similar concept to routers. Using packers is also not required. And if you want some good automating module splitting in jQuery app - you'll probably pick up some packer as well. So it's more like HTML5/jQuery can be compared to just React without additions.

Most of these things that bring cognitive load have some purpose. It looks from time to time that developers start making tools in the sake of tools, but most of the time there's some sane reasoning behind.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#606

Post by oblio »

natrik wrote: post #533
cercatrova wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resources are allocated to their constraints. You spend as much money as you have, as much time as you have, you hire as many people as you can afford, and so on. It may be because people don't think on an absolute time scale but rather a relative one; if you make 1 million in revenue and you only have 3 employees, you might feel like you should hire more. What happens if you start making one billion in revenue? Read…

Also companies aim to maximize the margins. If profit is currently $800,000/year and adding 1 software developer at $120,000/year salary (+benefits, hidden costs...) can lead to $800,001 profit, the company would do it.

And that's actually rational behavior. It's also a very simple and very materialistic explanation of why humankind evolves, bit by bit. It works the same way even for discovering new medicine or any kind of technology.

The new thing must be at least a bit better than the old thing. Over time those improvements compound and you end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#607

Post by lexs »

kjsthree wrote: post #538
jacobsenscott wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely in that other industry the engineer built 100+ other basically identical items that are two or three orders of magnitude less complex and where all the costs and techniques are pretty well known. Also, those mature industries routinely overrun by millions of dollars and months or years, event though they are dealing with a fraction of the complexity and the costs and techniques are well known. Software is the…

> Software is the only industry where you are asked to build systems that have never been built before but that are more complex than anything ever built in the history of "mature industries" I have a feeling that some SpaceX engineers would have something to say about this after one of their rockets lands on a floating barge.

Some McDonnell Douglas DC-X engineers would probably have something to say about your comment too.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#608

Post by pkalinowski »

In my free time I try to create some desktop apps. It's my free time, so I decided not to spend time learning Qt or other older solutions for desktop apps and go with the Electron.

I'm too stupid for Electron, though. I wasted many hours trying to debug weird errors which I never know if are caused by Electron itself, bundlers, npm modules not compatible with it or anything else like division between main/renderer process. I just can't grasp it.

I ended up with separate node.js server which takes care of communicating with OS and standard web app with the simplest bundle setup I have found (because I don't understand webpack config, too): Parceljs. Frontend and backend exchange information using socket.io with copy-paste examples from their website.

I couldn't believe it CAN be so simple! Maybe it's not "true" desktop app (it just opens in user browser), but works exactly like I want.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#609

Post by pixelbash »

The_rationalist wrote: post #392
TurningCanadian wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statefulness of jQuery is a massive cognitive load.

This is far from obvious and is almost never convincingly exemplified.

Try two way binding on nested form elements with jQuery.

Re: Why is modern web development so complicated?

#610

Post by engineeringwoke »

lmaophp wrote: post #565
reaperducer wrote: post #38

It doesn't have to be complicated, if you get support from above. A few weeks ago I launched a new web site for a health care company. HTML, PHP, CSS, and MySQL. No frameworks. No javascript. No garbage. It replaced a site that was a mess of javascript libraries on top of frameworks on top of a half dozen jquery version and on and on and on. The company administrators, doctors, practitioners, etc... are so happy with…

PHP in 2019 lmfao

My homegrown PHP framework is highly superior to these awful hipster JavaScript frameworks!
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