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The Frontend Treadmill

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Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#661

Post by klysm »

rpmisms wrote: post #241
bob1029 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no separation between backend and frontend folks in the company. This is the biggest gain available anywhere. When you have one engineer who is empowered to write SQL specifically crafted to pull the exact columns required to SSR a web view (which they are also responsible for), you don't need to spend a single second thinking about APIs or ORMs or whatever. You just need to know SQL and modern vanilla HTML/CSS/JS.…

Does writing HTML into database entries count? Because certain large entertainment companies are ahead of the curve if so.

This is just compiling and caching right?

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#662

Post by rambambram »

makingstuffs wrote: post #593
koreth1 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere, but I still don't fully understand the appeal. Me either, but I have a hunch about why. Are you a fast reader? I am, at least compared to the population at large. And one of the reasons I can't stand video as a format for learning about coding topics is that it is so frustratingly slow compared to my reading speed. To get anywhere c…

That’s a really interesting take. I say that as I’m the opposite — a slow reader — and I, too, cannot stand learning via video. I’m by no means a weak reader, I love reading and do so often. I just find myself re-reading complex sections to ensure that I understand 100%. I also like to be able to read something and then follow it on a train of thought. For example, if a post/article says that X causes Y because of Z…

I'm also a slow-reader by your standards, re-reading to me is part of the learning process. Going over text with your eyes is not reading, let alone learning.

I think your dislike of video over text is because you're a quick learner. Like you said, going on a tangent and researching some word or sentence or statement makes you a thorough learner I think. Eventually you have a quicker and bigger grasp of the subject at hand, which is the whole point if you ask me.

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#663

Post by antfarm »

pier25 wrote: post #356

It's not a frontend problem but a JS-ecosystem problem. Happens in the backend too. The JS landscape is an absolute mess where dependencies have dozens if not hundreds of other dependencies. As an example, this is the dependency graph of Platformatic (a Node framework based on Fastify): https://npmgraph.js.org/?q=platformatic#zoom=h Each of those dependencies could be abandoned at any moment. Even huge dependencies l…

368 dependencies, 179 dependencies with only one maintainer. 8 different licenses used. No thanks.

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#664

Post by rufus_foreman »

Illniyar wrote: post #313

I love it when people phrase this as a frontend problem. It's not a frontend problem. It's just a "it's a huge ecosystem with new players" problem. I've seen this in Java 15 years ago when it was the front of innovation (I can name dozens of frameworks, and a half dozen build systems coming out in as many years). React 17-18 is quite a minor change then perl 5->6 or python 2->3 For backend instead of "let's use this…

>> It's not a frontend problem

From my perspective as a Java developer, it's a frontend problem.

I've been employed as a Java developer for over a quarter of a century. For a little over the first ten years of that, I did full stack development, and that was the norm at the companies I worked for.

That has changed where it is now typical for there to be a separate team for frontend, and often three teams for frontend (web, iOS and Android). For me that change was around the time of AngularJS -> Angular.

Yes, Java was changing rapidly in the first ten years or so, very rapidly in the first 3 years. But that is over. Java 5 was a huge change, and there were some major features in Java 8, but Java 8 was in 2014. My team only switched to Java 11 recently. Java 24 is out now. I haven't used any Java 11 features. I don't even know what they are. I haven't learned a single new language feature for a decade.

Build tools are the same for the last 15 years. IDE is the same for the last 20 years. The main frameworks I use have been the same for 10 years. When I switched to my last job, the code base was structured exactly the way my previous team's was.

Building web services in Java is a solved problem. It's completely boring, in a good way. It's COBOL.

Frontend was changing rapidly in the late 90's/early 00's also, but it has kept changing rapidly the entire time since then. The pet UI project I build a few years ago is completely outdated.

Any of the Java projects that I worked on in the post-EJB era, you could easily find a Java developer today who could step in and immediately be productive working on them, even if the developer wasn't born yet when they were created. There would be a few outdated libraries to learn, maybe.

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#665

Post by [deleted] »

bloomingkales wrote: post #215
ewzimm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fascinating, and I had no idea web dev influencers were so big. I checked, and there really are people with millions of followers doing development. Personally, the idea of learning anything related to coding through a video is extremely frustrating. It's a text medium. I want to look at things, take time, think it over, compare code, follow references, look up functions. That people like video formats isn't r…

Here's one: https://remix.run/ These grifters sell entire courses on the product, that's their game. So when you find an unmaintained Remix app at your company, well, the grifters got the ears of your junior devs :( And they just promote it and promote it: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/courses Pure grift. But since most peo…

[deleted]

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#666

Post by pier25 »

czk wrote: post #660
pier25 wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with a Vue 2 + vuex + Vue Router project scaffolded with Vue CLI in 2016 which NPM is screaming at you is full of vulnerabilities. Or that React + React Router + Redux + Webpack 3 project from 2015. In both cases you'd need to spend serious time moving to newer deps, rearchitecturing, probably moving to Vite, etc.

Sounds absolutely brutal for sure. I didn't mean to sound like everything was fine in JavaScript land, they have been chasing the shiny new thing and focusing too much on the wrong abstractions for a while. Even backend frameworks aren't free from this same problem, when you look at the support and migration woes in big players like rails/laravel/django. I suppose thats less frequent though. I'm not sure how you avoi…

I agree. I don't know what the solution is either. I've been asking myself this question for some years now.

Last year, after 10 or so years using Node, I concluded that JS in the backend was a mistake and I had mostly wasted those years. I'm currently migrating towards another stack.

It's more difficult for the frontend. Inevitably you end up needing JS unless the project works as static HTML with close to no interactivity. I still haven't properly tested HTML over wire solutions though.

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#667

Post by rglover »

This is exactly why I'm building Joystick [1]. I got tired of the constant indecision and churn in JS frameworks, so I've built (and am actively building) a full-stack solution that features a simple component API that doesn't change, backed up by a batteries-included Node.js backend. All wired together so it's easy to use and fast to build your idea (for real, not just marketing fluff). Purposefully designed for people who are trying to build real businesses, not tinkering around to pad their resume.

The best part? I'm a tyrant about backwards compatibility, stability, and longevity (meaning, even if nobody else uses it, I'll be maintaining this for the long-haul).

For the cynics: for the love of all that's holy, do not send me the XKCD cartoon about standards. I deeply care about solving this problem and this isn't "just another JS framework." It's a replacement for all of the "just do everything on the client" buffoonery and it works incredibly well.

[1] https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#668

Post by cmgriffing »

tonyhb wrote: post #420
cmgriffing wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While his formal affiliation may have been short-lived, do you think he got a cut of the sale to Shopify? If so, not disclosing that when he promotes Remix is a bit shady. Nice dude and all, but that is one thing I take issue with still.

There are only a few popular, promoted alternatives to NextJS right now (that I know of): Remix and TanStack. That is, if you're fully React focused, ofc. I dont see promoting Remix as a red flag.

Promoting it? No problem. But promoting something you profited from without disclosing it violates FCC rules for broadcasting. I would say influencers aren't technically broadcasting but they are in principle.

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#669

Post by cmgriffing »

tshaddox wrote: post #435
cmgriffing wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While his formal affiliation may have been short-lived, do you think he got a cut of the sale to Shopify? If so, not disclosing that when he promotes Remix is a bit shady. Nice dude and all, but that is one thing I take issue with still.

I don't think it's weird to like a piece of software and have that lead you to work at the company that builds the software and also to develop an educational course about that software.

Not weird to do all that. Just weird to not disclose it.

Re: The Frontend Treadmill

#670

Post by rpmisms »

klysm wrote: post #661
rpmisms wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does writing HTML into database entries count? Because certain large entertainment companies are ahead of the curve if so.

This is just compiling and caching right?

No, this is hand-writing HTML into SQL database rows for conditional rendering. I think it stems from a culture of remarkable IP protectiveness. Take your guesses at which company I am referencing.
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