So called modern web developers are the culprits

#1

Post by shamilbi » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:38 AM UTC

So called modern web developers are the culprits
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Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#2

Post by cblconfederate » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:57 AM UTC

agreed. Actually browsers can help in this direction by incorporating a lot of the javascript UI elements into HTML. Most websites look the same anyways nowadays, optimized for mobile, rounded corner buttons, the same animations over and over. Web UI should be enough to replace all the apps in your phone nowadays

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#3

Post by jacobmischka » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

This article is a waste of time, just spouting the same blind hate for the web that's so common right now.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#4

Post by dmitriid » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #2

agreed. Actually browsers can help in this direction by incorporating a lot of the javascript UI elements into HTML. Most websites look the same anyways nowadays, optimized for mobile, rounded corner buttons, the same animations over and over. Web UI should be enough to replace all the apps in your phone nowadays

> Actually browsers can help in this direction by incorporating a lot of the javascript UI elements into HTML.

Unfortunately, none of the browsers want to or can do that. Chrome is mostly interested in fire and motion, and the other browsers can only do so much to keep up with it.

And while attempts like https://open-ui.org/ are admirable, we'll never see it in the browser.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#5

Post by TimMurnaghan » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:08 AM UTC

Agreed if you're making a web page.

However there are lots of us writing applications which are delivered by browser. With that lens you're completely wrong. Then I do want to send json from the backend and have lots of behaviour in the frontend viewing that in different ways.

So basically it's the differences between web pages and applications.

Truth is that there aren't many other sensible ways to deliver applications any more. All big companies still have windows machines - but MS broke all of the ways of writing applications on windows so going to the browser makes sense and you get some cross platform ability - plus you get to move it to the cloud.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#6

Post by jansan » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:09 AM UTC

>> Learn how to make a website with just HTML and CSS on the frontend. Only use JavaScript on the frontend for small UI improvement if you must, but make sure that the improvement is truly justified (you need to do proper user testing to know that). Even when it is justified, make sure that everything STILL work without JavaScript.

Is this article really from 2021? Maybe if you write a static blog this will work, but man, the browser is the new OS. No way we are dropping Javascript just because some luddites want us to.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#7

Post by danpalmer » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

I can't tell if this is satire or not. If it is, fine, I feel like it could have gone further and been funnier.

If it's not satire, I think it's misguided in places. Saying that Ruby/Python are too slow for web development and that it should be done it Go instead is a very naive point of view, that focuses too much on the technology rather than the problem being solved. It blasts past the use of fonts and big (high quality?) images saying people don't care, but with no evidence for that.

There are also some odd points made, like the points about single page apps. SPAs have the potential to make more granular HTTP requests like the author is advocating for than what is possible with full page reloads. I also think it's a strong bias of engineers to consider HTTP to be the user experience, it's not.

There's good stuff in here, but a lot of it boils down to: think about your UX, consider what the best tools are for the job, don't follow hype without consideration. Unfortunately most of the examples and extrapolation from these starting points is fairly naive.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#8

Post by forgotmypw17 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

The Web and HTML itself is a living historical document.

If you want to write good Websites, go through the last 25 years of browser history using Wine and try to write something which covers all of them.

It's not that difficult, and then you'll be ready to write actual accessible and compatible HTML.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#9

Post by nyberg » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:15 AM UTC

It feels like most of the SPAs should really just be desktop applications and hopefully with wasm, wgpu, and wasi that can be reduced to a smaller runtime than the current v8 for everything solution. They're not really web pages anyway and trying to get them to convert to static documents doesn't seem like it will go so well considering the "interactive experiences" they provide (using the browser as a cheap GUI framework).

Would possibly be nicer to ship for the new "java platform" that wasm is slowly recreating even for software that's not currently written as web apps.

Re: So called modern web developers are the culprits

#10

Post by chimen » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:16 AM UTC

Frontpage material /s