13 ms·

Maybe for a simple Web site, "HTML with a little bit of CSS and a little bit of JavaScript" is enough. It is certainly not the case for almost any Web applicati

Maybe for a simple Web site, "HTML with a little bit of CSS and a little bit of JavaScript" is enough. It is certainly not the case for almost any Web application.

regularfry 10y ago
That's the point. Most web applications are unnecessary, and come with significant downsides.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  So your point is that developers should stop developing because that functionality shouldn't exist?
  - regularfry 10y ago
    If that's all they have to work on, maybe. It's just broken windows if it's not actually an improvement. I like to think that they've got real problems to solve though.
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      That's so silly. If people are happily using a site I create (and I some cases paying money for use of that site) who are you to decide it's not worth it?
      - regularfry 10y ago
        You might care if you can deliver the same functionality with a fraction of the complexity and better performance. I care because if you're interacting with other developers while building that site, you might be leading credulous hype-followers down a path which means I end up having to maintain yet another pile of useless, overcomplicated JS.
        Klathmon 10y ago
        Well I'm sorry but I'm not going to care about what you like to maintain when I'm making things. Especially when people are paying me to make those things, you are literally the last person I care about, right below those "hype-followers".
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        The people paying you to make things probably are going to end up carrying about maintenance down the road; if you don't care, you are providing the kind of bad service that demonstrates the difference between much of what goes on in software development and actual professionalism -- a doctor it later that didn't concern themselves with, and proactively warn, a client/patient with that kind of down the road consequence would be guilty of professional malpractice.
        Klathmon 10y ago
        You seem to think i'm advocating for sloppy and un-maintainable programming... I'm advocating that the web is going to be the best platform for some applications. Users aren't going to want to go through complicated installs to install a program that they will only want to use a few times. They don't want to spend minutes or sometimes hours installing a program that they will only use every now and then. They want to be able to use the software from their iOS/android mobile device, computer, laptop, tablet, friend's computer, osx/window/linux/whogivesafuckOS. They want it to "install" in less than a second, and they want to be able to use it and leave. They want it to be secure, sandboxed, and know that it won't interfere with other programs they are running on their device. They want to know that it is in it's own sandbox, and they want it to be as easy as typing in an address or clicking a single link from a search engine. If you know of any other platform (even a single other platform) where that amount of speed that the average person can install, use, and "uninstall" a program with the security, ease of use, and sandboxing of the web, then by all means please let me know. But until then don't act like anyone writing software targeting the web as a platform is doing some kind of disservice to society. It's not. The people doing a disservice to society are people like you who "look down upon" those who develop for or use the web to get shit done. Calling it "bad service" because you don't like how it's used is juvenile, and downright wrong.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    The parent's point can also be interpreted as using simple stuff on client side with the complex stuff on server side. It's what we did for a long time with pretty complex applications. An example of why was a site that uses plenty of JS for almost everything to present entertainment articles. A site like that on dialup pre-Web 2.0 would've loaded all the content in seconds then gradually load the images. On 4G Galaxy 4, the damned thing took 10 seconds to load with parts of the page jumping everywhere. Clicking "next page" literally took 10 seconds each time just so I'd click the right thing. Whereas, some sites don't have that problem at all since they mostly use HTML and CSS that's cached and fast-loading. Only the JS parts are slow and I usually don't need them. When I do, they've already loaded. I could see alternatives used for something like Facebook but the old stuff would work for over 90% of sites I see. It would also be more efficient outside network transfer. But they usually use CDN's with whole site cached so who cares.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Maybe for a simple Web site, "HTML with a little bit of CSS and a little bit of JavaScript" is enough. It is certainly not the case for almost any Web application.

regularfry 10y ago

That's the point. Most web applications are unnecessary, and come with significant downsides.

Klathmon 10y ago
So your point is that developers should stop developing because that functionality shouldn't exist?
- regularfry 10y ago
  If that's all they have to work on, maybe. It's just broken windows if it's not actually an improvement. I like to think that they've got real problems to solve though.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    That's so silly. If people are happily using a site I create (and I some cases paying money for use of that site) who are you to decide it's not worth it?
    - regularfry 10y ago
      You might care if you can deliver the same functionality with a fraction of the complexity and better performance. I care because if you're interacting with other developers while building that site, you might be leading credulous hype-followers down a path which means I end up having to maintain yet another pile of useless, overcomplicated JS.
      - Klathmon 10y ago
        Well I'm sorry but I'm not going to care about what you like to maintain when I'm making things. Especially when people are paying me to make those things, you are literally the last person I care about, right below those "hype-followers".
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        The people paying you to make things probably are going to end up carrying about maintenance down the road; if you don't care, you are providing the kind of bad service that demonstrates the difference between much of what goes on in software development and actual professionalism -- a doctor it later that didn't concern themselves with, and proactively warn, a client/patient with that kind of down the road consequence would be guilty of professional malpractice.
        Klathmon 10y ago
        You seem to think i'm advocating for sloppy and un-maintainable programming... I'm advocating that the web is going to be the best platform for some applications. Users aren't going to want to go through complicated installs to install a program that they will only want to use a few times. They don't want to spend minutes or sometimes hours installing a program that they will only use every now and then. They want to be able to use the software from their iOS/android mobile device, computer, laptop, tablet, friend's computer, osx/window/linux/whogivesafuckOS. They want it to "install" in less than a second, and they want to be able to use it and leave. They want it to be secure, sandboxed, and know that it won't interfere with other programs they are running on their device. They want to know that it is in it's own sandbox, and they want it to be as easy as typing in an address or clicking a single link from a search engine. If you know of any other platform (even a single other platform) where that amount of speed that the average person can install, use, and "uninstall" a program with the security, ease of use, and sandboxing of the web, then by all means please let me know. But until then don't act like anyone writing software targeting the web as a platform is doing some kind of disservice to society. It's not. The people doing a disservice to society are people like you who "look down upon" those who develop for or use the web to get shit done. Calling it "bad service" because you don't like how it's used is juvenile, and downright wrong.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  The parent's point can also be interpreted as using simple stuff on client side with the complex stuff on server side. It's what we did for a long time with pretty complex applications. An example of why was a site that uses plenty of JS for almost everything to present entertainment articles. A site like that on dialup pre-Web 2.0 would've loaded all the content in seconds then gradually load the images. On 4G Galaxy 4, the damned thing took 10 seconds to load with parts of the page jumping everywhere. Clicking "next page" literally took 10 seconds each time just so I'd click the right thing. Whereas, some sites don't have that problem at all since they mostly use HTML and CSS that's cached and fast-loading. Only the JS parts are slow and I usually don't need them. When I do, they've already loaded. I could see alternatives used for something like Facebook but the old stuff would work for over 90% of sites I see. It would also be more efficient outside network transfer. But they usually use CDN's with whole site cached so who cares.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]