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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

#81

Post by alpaca128 »

zeepzeep wrote: post #33
marcus_holmes wrote: post #3

I have a feeling that this is the next religious war in dev. I read this article and shudder in horror at, well, all of it. I like static sites (that wouldn't take minutes to build if they were written in a decent language). Adding lots and lots of JS dependencies and frameworks gives me the screaming ab-dabs - it's just adding complexity and dependency. I like writing code, not plumbing together bits of other people…

> I like writing code, not plumbing together bits of other people's code with bizarre config files I don't like reinventing the wheel every time I build something

Meanwhile I do like reinventing the wheel. Or, more accurately, designing a wheel that fits my needs well.

Sure, I also use libraries for things that are just tedious, hard to get right or just some standard feature that's always used the same way. But you can overdo it.

Debugging my own code is annoying but doable. Debugging other people's code is a lot more tedious. Troubleshooting a mess of 1000 transitive dependencies because one package had version 10.0.6 instead of 10.0.5 and that caused an avalanche of breakage makes me reconsider my life choices.

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

#82

Post by auggierose »

westoncb wrote: post #71
auggierose wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web browser API's usually do keep their invariants. I wouldn't use libraries which don't. Libraries which do not support TypeScript will vanish. See, all your experience (in a limited field) is telling you the wrong thing. And it is quite obvious to me that you need to know BOTH TypeScript and Javascript, of course, you cannot just learn TypeScript, because it is just a thin layer on top of Javascript without many ru…

> See, all your experience (in a limited field) is telling you the wrong thing. You seem to be conflating objective wrong/right with your own personal stance. Do you have an objective argument in favor of your assertion about the longevity of non-TS libs? > And it is quite obvious to me that you need to know BOTH TypeScript and Javascript That's a reasonable strategy on the assumption that TypeScript will be used, bu…

Obviously, there is no objective wrong/right here, as only the future can tell. My subjective experience tells me, it will be that way.

There is no need to context-switch. Just accept Javascript as part of TypeScript, because it really is. The argument is clear: TypeScript drastically reduces the amount of errors you will be making when coding, and the amount of time you need to think about stuff that is really trivial.

The rule of thumb on how to do this is also simple: Keep your types simple, use them to make your life easier, not more complicated. If you cannot model something simply using types, don't try to do so, just use the dynamic typing escape hatch that Javascript provides.

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

#83

Post by andybak »

coldtea wrote: post #49
andybak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like it's a bad thing?

I'm saying it in jest, but also as an observation. The TFA writer takes it for granted, but then again, so do many (most?) today.

Maybe that makes it even more important to repeatedly raise the possibility that this assumption is wrong.

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

#84

Post by FractalHQ »

vgel wrote: post #79
randmeerkat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Not OP, but Linode. Used to be on their $10 a month VPS, downgraded when they added the $5 a month one. I think they have some fancy Kube stuff now but I just have a makefile that rsyncs a directory to my VPS and nginx picks it up. Honestly even the $5 VPS is more power than I need for static files, but it's nice to have the option to throw up a flask app or run some web-scraping scripts overnight or something. Admit…

But personal-website-tier static file hosting is free these days!

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

#85

Post by arbuge »

There has never been a better time to build websites. Or web apps. Or SaaS apps. etc.

There has never been a harder time to get the word out about them.

Which makes sense. The more you make it easy to build them, the more there will be. But the world population increases slowly and only has a finite attention span. More and more websites are competing for a pie growing much more slowly.

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

#86

Post by rambambram »

samhw wrote: post #60
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…

> Oh, and RSS is not dead. Not at all (thanks WordPress, for putting a feed on every instance). RSS is the only workable way to make the web social again. What we need, IMO, is more experimental protocols to enrich the web, which maverick developers can use to good effect, the same way we did originally with RSS. More browsers forking Chromium or Servo to add support for these new features. Hell, maybe even something…

I agree with your sentiment, but RSS and the likes are not 'the same old weapon but better'. It was never 'weaponized' in the first place. It never really came to fruition for the masses. To me, RSS is like two sticks and a string, and it needs some people who can see that they can make a bow and arrow out of it (to stay in the realm of 'weapons').

I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore.

To be honest, it's only since recently that I myself take RSS seriously. Before, I developed a sh1tload of websites without even really knowing what RSS is capable of. Ignorant me.

Thanks for your reply!

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

#87

Post by kevincox »

I'm honestly not sure if this is satire or not.

> Static was a fun diversion, but we're back to what works.

Static works really well for many use cases. And you are never going to beat the performance of static in a cache close to your user. I agree that there are many cases where server-rendered is the best option but static with a good sprinkling of JS and server-generated embeds definitely works.

> Tailwind CSS is the best thing to ever happen to CSS

This is obviously controversial. Maybe for non-static websites where every `

` in your site is generated from the same line of code it is trivial to add `class="m-4 text-gray-900"` when I may use the same component in multiple places that gets boring really fast.

> GitHub Copilot

Maybe if you weren't writing `m-2` on every p this wouldn't be as helpful /s

Maybe I haven't seen the light yet, but in most weakly-typed languages Copilot felt like a huge loaded footgun. It also generally worked on the simple cases that didn't require much work anyways.

---

I think it is clear that this person found an approach that works for them, but it seems like there is still a lot of from for improvement here.

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

#88

Post by taubek »

I think that is is important to take into consideration all off the possible additional overhead and costs. Just because something can be done it doesn't mean that it has to be done. The main question is, why do you have a website? If it is to learn new things, to play around that frequent changes are ok. But if you need something that will be stable, and easy to maintain over a long period of time you should be more careful with your choices.

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

#89

Post by rambambram »

lemonberry wrote: post #66
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.

So true! I hear small businesses and freelancers complain about being kicked of Twitter, OnlyFans, Youtube, Facebook, etc.

One might not immediately make money with a website (although you sure can!), but the moment you are kicked of some platform, you have a safe haven to fall back on. A place where you can share the same textual or visual media with your visitors(/followers/friends/fans/connections). But instead of organizing a party and renting some space, you make it a house party, where you are the host.

The only moderators on your website are you, your webhosting provider, and the government (I call it GovMod).

Thanks for your reply!

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

#90

Post by MrPatan »

omgitsabird wrote: post #13

> CSS is effectively solved. Tailwind CSS is the best thing to ever happen to CSS. I cannot imagine ever writing CSS in a separate file and having to think of names for elements. It's also an excellent resource for beginners. I work with developers still have difficulty with concepts like specificity and cascading even though they have been working with CSS for many years. I don't think statements like this are true…

Isn't Tailwind the one where you write inline styles with classnames instead of inline styles? How's that good?
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