7 ms·

I appreciate the effort, certainly do. But, and this a big but: the amount of tooling, libraries, complexity and systems needed for a "modern" web app is almost

I appreciate the effort, certainly do. But, and this a big but: the amount of tooling, libraries, complexity and systems needed for a "modern" web app is almost comical at this point.

TheDrizzle43 10y ago
In fairness you definitely do not need everything listed here to have a perfectly fine web app. I think it's more beneficial to add in things when you find a use case for it. You probably don't need 3 unit testing libraries, you don't need Redux to use React, nor do you need Immutable to use Redux.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ng12 10y ago
Are you sure it doesn't seem that way to you because you're less familiar with the ecosystem? Compare it to a Java backend. You might pick Ant, Ivy, Docker, Dropwizard, Guice, Jersey, Jackson, Mockito, JUnit, etc. I don't consider that to be radically less complex than the front-end stack proposed here -- but it just seems that way because a lot of those are "de facto" tools.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  Oh sure, let's pick on the fat kid :-) Yeah, there's a lot of evil lurking in Java-land, but that doesn't stop people from having to use all those things, either.
- rootlocus 10y ago
  > You might pick Ant, Ivy, Docker, Dropwizard, Guice, Jersey, Jackson, Mockito, JUnit, etc. I would pick maven, and add the rest as dependencies inside the pom.xml file (the only configuration file I need to worry about). It would take me about 5 minutes and then I could import the project into IntelliJ IDEA and hack away. I can write a tutorial about it in a single blog post, together with the necessary commands to build, test and deploy the artifact. With javascript, I need: webpack.conf, package.json, .babelrc and god knows what else. Seems like every piece of technology around javascript (transpilers, packers, dependency managers) requires another layer of configuration, another set of CLI commands, and another waste of time trying to figure out why it doesn't work.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- ceronman 10y ago
  Java is no less complex indeed. I'm just starting to use its ecosystem and I definitely think it has a lot of complexity. But there are other tools that are much simpler. One example is the Dart programming language. I know it's not very popular here in HN land, but the experience is really really nice. You have a fast, powerful, concise, sane and optionally static typed language with awesome tooling (debugging, introspection, profiling, package management) and great support from Google. All this comes in a single easy to use installer. The only extra thing that you might need to download is a plugin for your favorite editor or IDE. Dart, of course, doesn't enjoy all the hype that the JS ecosystem has, but the barrier of entry is really low, and the tools are extremely polished, stable and very production ready. I recommend anyone who is not scared of leaving the hype train to give it a try.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  The thing is - other platforms have a 'happy path' that covers a lot of use cases and is straightforward to setup and use. JS, similar to C++, does not have this.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- gravypod 10y ago
  It depends on what you're building. I think Java really shines better in the backend long-lived services realm. If you're just writing something that doesn't need any fancy "web" layers plain Java in a plain Eclipse project is all you need to get going. Nothing more. You just need to know how to type and what you're trying to do and most things you want to do are very easy to accomplish.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    You can replace java with javascript and your sentence is still 100% true. And I think that's the point many are trying to make. It's not overly complicated, it's just that people are trying to use every tool they read about without understanding it or why it was created. If you are making a website for your restaurant, you don't need react, webpack, babel, sass, etc... You need a few hundred lines of html and like 20 of javascript and you are good to go. But if you are building a video streaming platform, then the extra complexity will most likely pay off.
    - rootlocus 10y ago
      Javascript is a scripting language for the browsers. Its original purpose was to make dynamic webpages by allowing browsers to modify their content according to some basic scripts. If I replace "Java" with "javascript" I get: > Javascript really shines better in the backend long-lived services realm. You realize how ironic that sounds, right? No matter how many language improvements, transpilers, builders, etc. you throw at it, javascript will always remain, at its core, a dumb scripting language for browsers.
      - Klathmon 10y ago
        Well I can't say I agree in the slightest. If you treat JS like a toy, it's gonna act like a toy.
        rootlocus 10y ago
        Treating it as something else won't make it something else. It will just require a "minimal" stack of 10 other technologies.
- jonaf 10y ago
  > Compare it to a Java backend. You might pick Ant, Ivy, Docker, Dropwizard, Guice, Jersey, Jackson, Mockito, JUnit, etc. I don't consider that to be radically less complex than the front-end stack proposed here -- but it just seems that way because a lot of those are "de facto" tools. For the benefit of folks unfamiliar with Java, Docker is not necessary nor tied in any way to Java. The majority of Java is not deployed on Docker, and Docker is written in Go. In fact, the Java mantra "write once, run anywhere" is accomplished by the JVM, so you don't need Docker. You would need it for other languages not on the JVM. Also, Dropwizard is just a bundle of libraries (most of those you mentioned), so you don't need to include both Dropwizard and a list of libraries that it includes.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- xg15 10y ago
  A more realistic list would be: Maven, Dropwizard, Guava, Guice, JUnit, Mockito. (Jersey and Jackson too, but those are included in Dropwizard so ideally you don't need to care about them) Also, ideally, installing dropwizard, guava, guice, junit and mockito consist of just adding 5 lines of XML to the pom.xml file for each - no configuration needed. Of course if you fall out of the ideal world, things can get ugly. The horrors if two dependencies insist of using incompatible versions of Jackson but Maven insists that you can only use one version of it in your project at a time...
Roboprog 10y ago
Describing that collection of tools as "minimalistic" was indeed a touch of irony. Angular (1.x) might not be "cool" anymore, but it can be pretty darn "minimal" to set up: https://github.com/roboprog/ang-prog-enh https://github.com/roboprog/ang-prog-enh (above not quite done, it's for a presentation I'm going to do in December, but it's pretty close) React works better for many things - server side rendering for SEO; endless scrawling wall of chunks of more-of-the-same (social media...) - but it's not "simple".
- Roboprog 10y ago
  I guess I should have said it is helpful that somebody is putting together a tutorial for what they feel is a useful path to a certain destination. BUT, the author might want to address the "elephant in the room" that there is a certain amount of necessary complexity if you want to meet certain goals.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- xg15 10y ago
  ...and I'm just sitting here, using jQuery..
  - Roboprog 10y ago
    And that works well for some use-cases, as well. E.g. - I (only) want to read some hidden link data in the original page DOM, then load some page fragments that are taking longer to generate.
- elnado 10y ago
  Yeah that's awesome! I still reference the Angular seed project whenever doing a quick front-end for a prototype.
rimantas 10y ago
What's comical (or sad, really) that things built with this often are not even web apps.
Wintamute 10y ago
The create-react-app tool from Facebook lets you create a "modern" (air quotes yours) web app with one development dependency and zero configuration. https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/07/22/create-apps-with-no-configuration.html https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/07/22/create-apps... It's surprisingly full featured. Testing, ES6, CSS, live reload dev server, building for production ... everything you need for the majority of React based web app builds. Literally up and running in minutes. Also you can just offload all of the cognitive burden of selecting tools to people much more qualified. Judge the whole scene by one GitHub project if you will, but the "boo hoo web development is too complicated" meme is getting a bit old now. It's mainly coming from a place of ignorance. Yes it's been a journey for web development over the past few years, but there are powerful and simple tools available now that other platforms and communities could learn from, rather than just disparage.
- treehau5 10y ago
  It's funny, but if some of these people griping about web development tried to unpack their favorite enterprise framework, like Spring MVC or whatever J2EE/.NET architecture they are running, there would be way more packages and bundles wrapped up together. It's just the web is finally getting to a good place.
  - fourthark 10y ago
    Yeah, difference is between a "standard library" with a million components, and a million independently distributed components. With the usual tradeoffs between centralization and competition.
    - ng12 10y ago
      How do you think you get to a standard library? How do you package the best tools when you don't know what the best tools are?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
hhsnopek 10y ago
I agree, all you really need is webpack and vuejs
giancarlostoro 10y ago
I've never been a front-end guy, and now the barrier grows with all these frameworks to make amazing applications still holding me back. Plus the fact that if I have NoScript installed, all my work is now pointless. I hate going to websites that literally don't work @ all if I have no JavaScript enabled, with the exception of HN and those rare sites that have minimal JavaScript in use.
- beejiu 10y ago
  > I hate going to websites that literally don't work @ all if I have no JavaScript enabled It is no surprise that businesses don't want to spend an extra 20% development time supporting 0.5% of web users. At some point, it becomes a problem for the user - you cannot support everyone.
  - astrobe_ 10y ago
    Except they could spare 200% development time with only HTML+CSS. Many times the real motivation is monetization. Simple sites like HN that don't get revenue from readership don't need Javascript.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Agreed. Why spend more effort making sites less usable for everyone? If you keep things small and simple, you spend less time developing and they are more resilient
  - Touche 10y ago
    Progressive enhancement isn't about people with JS turned off. It's about resiliency to failures. That might be network congestion, it might be a mistake in your code, or something else.
garysieling 10y ago
Once you get an application set up for the first time you don't really have to change it much, unless you want to take advantage of new features in the browser or Node.

I appreciate the effort, certainly do. But, and this a big but: the amount of tooling, libraries, complexity and systems needed for a "modern" web app is almost comical at this point.

TheDrizzle43 10y ago

In fairness you definitely do not need everything listed here to have a perfectly fine web app. I think it's more beneficial to add in things when you find a use case for it. You probably don't need 3 unit testing libraries, you don't need Redux to use React, nor do you need Immutable to use Redux.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ng12 10y ago

Are you sure it doesn't seem that way to you because you're less familiar with the ecosystem? Compare it to a Java backend. You might pick Ant, Ivy, Docker, Dropwizard, Guice, Jersey, Jackson, Mockito, JUnit, etc. I don't consider that to be radically less complex than the front-end stack proposed here -- but it just seems that way because a lot of those are "de facto" tools.

Roboprog 10y ago
Oh sure, let's pick on the fat kid :-) Yeah, there's a lot of evil lurking in Java-land, but that doesn't stop people from having to use all those things, either.
rootlocus 10y ago
> You might pick Ant, Ivy, Docker, Dropwizard, Guice, Jersey, Jackson, Mockito, JUnit, etc. I would pick maven, and add the rest as dependencies inside the pom.xml file (the only configuration file I need to worry about). It would take me about 5 minutes and then I could import the project into IntelliJ IDEA and hack away. I can write a tutorial about it in a single blog post, together with the necessary commands to build, test and deploy the artifact. With javascript, I need: webpack.conf, package.json, .babelrc and god knows what else. Seems like every piece of technology around javascript (transpilers, packers, dependency managers) requires another layer of configuration, another set of CLI commands, and another waste of time trying to figure out why it doesn't work.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ceronman 10y ago
Java is no less complex indeed. I'm just starting to use its ecosystem and I definitely think it has a lot of complexity. But there are other tools that are much simpler. One example is the Dart programming language. I know it's not very popular here in HN land, but the experience is really really nice. You have a fast, powerful, concise, sane and optionally static typed language with awesome tooling (debugging, introspection, profiling, package management) and great support from Google. All this comes in a single easy to use installer. The only extra thing that you might need to download is a plugin for your favorite editor or IDE. Dart, of course, doesn't enjoy all the hype that the JS ecosystem has, but the barrier of entry is really low, and the tools are extremely polished, stable and very production ready. I recommend anyone who is not scared of leaving the hype train to give it a try.
rubber_duck 10y ago
The thing is - other platforms have a 'happy path' that covers a lot of use cases and is straightforward to setup and use. JS, similar to C++, does not have this.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
gravypod 10y ago
It depends on what you're building. I think Java really shines better in the backend long-lived services realm. If you're just writing something that doesn't need any fancy "web" layers plain Java in a plain Eclipse project is all you need to get going. Nothing more. You just need to know how to type and what you're trying to do and most things you want to do are very easy to accomplish.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  You can replace java with javascript and your sentence is still 100% true. And I think that's the point many are trying to make. It's not overly complicated, it's just that people are trying to use every tool they read about without understanding it or why it was created. If you are making a website for your restaurant, you don't need react, webpack, babel, sass, etc... You need a few hundred lines of html and like 20 of javascript and you are good to go. But if you are building a video streaming platform, then the extra complexity will most likely pay off.
  - rootlocus 10y ago
    Javascript is a scripting language for the browsers. Its original purpose was to make dynamic webpages by allowing browsers to modify their content according to some basic scripts. If I replace "Java" with "javascript" I get: > Javascript really shines better in the backend long-lived services realm. You realize how ironic that sounds, right? No matter how many language improvements, transpilers, builders, etc. you throw at it, javascript will always remain, at its core, a dumb scripting language for browsers.
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      Well I can't say I agree in the slightest. If you treat JS like a toy, it's gonna act like a toy.
      - rootlocus 10y ago
        Treating it as something else won't make it something else. It will just require a "minimal" stack of 10 other technologies.
jonaf 10y ago
> Compare it to a Java backend. You might pick Ant, Ivy, Docker, Dropwizard, Guice, Jersey, Jackson, Mockito, JUnit, etc. I don't consider that to be radically less complex than the front-end stack proposed here -- but it just seems that way because a lot of those are "de facto" tools. For the benefit of folks unfamiliar with Java, Docker is not necessary nor tied in any way to Java. The majority of Java is not deployed on Docker, and Docker is written in Go. In fact, the Java mantra "write once, run anywhere" is accomplished by the JVM, so you don't need Docker. You would need it for other languages not on the JVM. Also, Dropwizard is just a bundle of libraries (most of those you mentioned), so you don't need to include both Dropwizard and a list of libraries that it includes.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
xg15 10y ago
A more realistic list would be: Maven, Dropwizard, Guava, Guice, JUnit, Mockito. (Jersey and Jackson too, but those are included in Dropwizard so ideally you don't need to care about them) Also, ideally, installing dropwizard, guava, guice, junit and mockito consist of just adding 5 lines of XML to the pom.xml file for each - no configuration needed. Of course if you fall out of the ideal world, things can get ugly. The horrors if two dependencies insist of using incompatible versions of Jackson but Maven insists that you can only use one version of it in your project at a time...

Roboprog 10y ago

Describing that collection of tools as "minimalistic" was indeed a touch of irony. Angular (1.x) might not be "cool" anymore, but it can be pretty darn "minimal" to set up: https://github.com/roboprog/ang-prog-enh https://github.com/roboprog/ang-prog-enh (above not quite done, it's for a presentation I'm going to do in December, but it's pretty close) React works better for many things - server side rendering for SEO; endless scrawling wall of chunks of more-of-the-same (social media...) - but it's not "simple".

Roboprog 10y ago
I guess I should have said it is helpful that somebody is putting together a tutorial for what they feel is a useful path to a certain destination. BUT, the author might want to address the "elephant in the room" that there is a certain amount of necessary complexity if you want to meet certain goals.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
xg15 10y ago
...and I'm just sitting here, using jQuery..
- Roboprog 10y ago
  And that works well for some use-cases, as well. E.g. - I (only) want to read some hidden link data in the original page DOM, then load some page fragments that are taking longer to generate.
elnado 10y ago
Yeah that's awesome! I still reference the Angular seed project whenever doing a quick front-end for a prototype.

rimantas 10y ago

What's comical (or sad, really) that things built with this often are not even web apps.

Wintamute 10y ago

The create-react-app tool from Facebook lets you create a "modern" (air quotes yours) web app with one development dependency and zero configuration. https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/07/22/create-apps-with-no-configuration.html https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/07/22/create-apps... It's surprisingly full featured. Testing, ES6, CSS, live reload dev server, building for production ... everything you need for the majority of React based web app builds. Literally up and running in minutes. Also you can just offload all of the cognitive burden of selecting tools to people much more qualified. Judge the whole scene by one GitHub project if you will, but the "boo hoo web development is too complicated" meme is getting a bit old now. It's mainly coming from a place of ignorance. Yes it's been a journey for web development over the past few years, but there are powerful and simple tools available now that other platforms and communities could learn from, rather than just disparage.

treehau5 10y ago
It's funny, but if some of these people griping about web development tried to unpack their favorite enterprise framework, like Spring MVC or whatever J2EE/.NET architecture they are running, there would be way more packages and bundles wrapped up together. It's just the web is finally getting to a good place.
- fourthark 10y ago
  Yeah, difference is between a "standard library" with a million components, and a million independently distributed components. With the usual tradeoffs between centralization and competition.
  - ng12 10y ago
    How do you think you get to a standard library? How do you package the best tools when you don't know what the best tools are?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

hhsnopek 10y ago

I agree, all you really need is webpack and vuejs

giancarlostoro 10y ago

I've never been a front-end guy, and now the barrier grows with all these frameworks to make amazing applications still holding me back. Plus the fact that if I have NoScript installed, all my work is now pointless. I hate going to websites that literally don't work @ all if I have no JavaScript enabled, with the exception of HN and those rare sites that have minimal JavaScript in use.

beejiu 10y ago
> I hate going to websites that literally don't work @ all if I have no JavaScript enabled It is no surprise that businesses don't want to spend an extra 20% development time supporting 0.5% of web users. At some point, it becomes a problem for the user - you cannot support everyone.
- astrobe_ 10y ago
  Except they could spare 200% development time with only HTML+CSS. Many times the real motivation is monetization. Simple sites like HN that don't get revenue from readership don't need Javascript.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Agreed. Why spend more effort making sites less usable for everyone? If you keep things small and simple, you spend less time developing and they are more resilient
- Touche 10y ago
  Progressive enhancement isn't about people with JS turned off. It's about resiliency to failures. That might be network congestion, it might be a mistake in your code, or something else.

garysieling 10y ago

Once you get an application set up for the first time you don't really have to change it much, unless you want to take advantage of new features in the browser or Node.