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> anyone who wants to build websites of even the simplest kind is expected to wheel in an incredibly large client-side and development stack. What? Says who? I

> anyone who wants to build websites of even the simplest kind is expected to wheel in an incredibly large client-side and development stack. What? Says who? In my humble opinion this sounds to me like a case of "I don't like when people use things that I don't like". Nobody is expecting anyone to do anything for "websites of even the simplest kind". People just use technology they like or think is fun. Nobody is forcing you to like it or use it.

gambler 10y ago
Nobody is forcing you to like it or use it. SPAs definitely try to force me to use JavaScript when browsing.
- root_axis 10y ago
  This is an ironic reply in the context of an article showcasing a technology that literally obviates that exact issue.
  - gambler 10y ago
    It's not ironic at all. Many websites listed on project's showcase page are screwed up if you open them without JavaScript. From mangled layouts to complete failures of rendering. This project pushes complexity where no complexity is needed. It's main appeal is that it uses a JavaScript library designed for faster DOM manipulation to render static pages. Do you not see that something is horribly wrong with this picture?
andybak 10y ago
I agree there's an element of "get off my lawn" about me - but it's backed by a genuine fear about what happens to people new to web development. The impression given by looking around the web for discussions and tutorials is that you have to learn full client-side MVC. This is a huge burden to impose. The other danger is that people are building sites using these stacks because they never learnt the simpler way to do things. All the complexity gets pulled in without question. At least us old-timers have the experience to know when there's a positive cost/benefit ratio for all this tech. I'm not sure everyone will in the future.
- root_axis 10y ago
  I get what you're saying, and I do agree that beginners can easily get bogged down in all the different tools, frameworks and libraries, however at the end of the day I feel like beginners just have to learn how to navigate the ecosystem. If a novice is trying to build a webpack powered react/redux SPA on top of kafka without understanding basic programming fundamentals then only their own failure is going to teach them why that isn't such a great idea. At a minimum I think we need to just expect beginners to do a little research on what it is they need to learn. Overambitious novices are not exclusive to the software world, think of a novice guitar player who insists on spending $3000 on pedals, amps and mixing software before they're able to pluck out "twinkle twinkle little star"; some people just need to learn the hard way. Besides, as you alluded to, having the ability to weigh tradeoffs and make a cost/benefit analysis is a honed skill that takes time and experience to develop and making a few incorrect choices is a critical part of the learning process.

gambler 10y ago

Nobody is forcing you to like it or use it. SPAs definitely try to force me to use JavaScript when browsing.

root_axis 10y ago
This is an ironic reply in the context of an article showcasing a technology that literally obviates that exact issue.
- gambler 10y ago
  It's not ironic at all. Many websites listed on project's showcase page are screwed up if you open them without JavaScript. From mangled layouts to complete failures of rendering. This project pushes complexity where no complexity is needed. It's main appeal is that it uses a JavaScript library designed for faster DOM manipulation to render static pages. Do you not see that something is horribly wrong with this picture?

andybak 10y ago

I agree there's an element of "get off my lawn" about me - but it's backed by a genuine fear about what happens to people new to web development. The impression given by looking around the web for discussions and tutorials is that you have to learn full client-side MVC. This is a huge burden to impose. The other danger is that people are building sites using these stacks because they never learnt the simpler way to do things. All the complexity gets pulled in without question. At least us old-timers have the experience to know when there's a positive cost/benefit ratio for all this tech. I'm not sure everyone will in the future.

root_axis 10y ago
I get what you're saying, and I do agree that beginners can easily get bogged down in all the different tools, frameworks and libraries, however at the end of the day I feel like beginners just have to learn how to navigate the ecosystem. If a novice is trying to build a webpack powered react/redux SPA on top of kafka without understanding basic programming fundamentals then only their own failure is going to teach them why that isn't such a great idea. At a minimum I think we need to just expect beginners to do a little research on what it is they need to learn. Overambitious novices are not exclusive to the software world, think of a novice guitar player who insists on spending $3000 on pedals, amps and mixing software before they're able to pluck out "twinkle twinkle little star"; some people just need to learn the hard way. Besides, as you alluded to, having the ability to weigh tradeoffs and make a cost/benefit analysis is a honed skill that takes time and experience to develop and making a few incorrect choices is a critical part of the learning process.