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I'm admiring this work, but can't help to be increasingly concerned about the utter complexity web developing is heading for. Case in point on a reddit frequent

I'm admiring this work, but can't help to be increasingly concerned about the utter complexity web developing is heading for. Case in point on a reddit frequented by junior web devs (and product placement bots as it seems): https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/6sdglh/feeling_overwhelmed_with_the_current_web/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/6sdglh/feeling_over...

ivan_gammel 9y ago
User interfaces are hard to implement and JS is only approaching the complexity of requirements for modern UI. It's no more a single form or a button, so it should not be a surprise. On the other side, JS indeed is ugly language with trash ecosystem (btw, how long it will take for community to get rid of fsevents warning on non-Mac systems?), but there are patterns forming and best practices being documented. It can be learned, but juniors should not expect learning a huge engineering discipline in a week.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >User interfaces are hard to implement They weren't that hard in Visual Basic 20 years ago, nor in any modern environment like Cocoa -- and they didn't need all the craziness and frantic over-engineering that goes on in JS frameworks. The problem is everybody in the web rebuilds the whole UI from low level primitives. Need a wizard? Make one yourself. Need a form? Build it. No upfront structure to anything -- and the frameworks don't add enough either.
  - ivan_gammel 9y ago
    User interfaces are not just forms and wizards. You cannot build everything from a high level template. That's why the whole UX discipline exists.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >User interfaces are not just forms and wizards. Never said they were. Just used them as two basic examples, that web UIs still overcomplicate and have problems with. >You cannot build everything from a high level template. That's why the whole UX discipline exists. The UX discipline exists for a totally orthogonal reason: to study, understand, and suggest improvements to the design of interfaces (and the resulting "user experience" with them), whether they are made with a "high level template" or not. You still need UX if you everything with the basic Cocoa controls or Windows standard widgets or whatever. The kind of UIs you can do in native, beyond forms and wizards, the web can't even dream of. The inverse is not true (except if you do your whole thing in Canvas or WebGL which defeats the purpose).
disiplus 9y ago
you dont really need all this if you want a simple presentations website. most of those things are for more complex web applications. a lot of times where i end up is using jquery and some templating like handlebars to show some ajax response. if its something simple its not wrong to use jquery or vanila javascript, you dont have to use those complex tools.
- Mitranim 9y ago
  Correct. Most websites are better off with static HTML or server-side rendering and the least possible amount of JS. However some apps DO have to be fat. And don't forget about Node.js.

ivan_gammel 9y ago

User interfaces are hard to implement and JS is only approaching the complexity of requirements for modern UI. It's no more a single form or a button, so it should not be a surprise. On the other side, JS indeed is ugly language with trash ecosystem (btw, how long it will take for community to get rid of fsevents warning on non-Mac systems?), but there are patterns forming and best practices being documented. It can be learned, but juniors should not expect learning a huge engineering discipline in a week.

coldtea 9y ago
>User interfaces are hard to implement They weren't that hard in Visual Basic 20 years ago, nor in any modern environment like Cocoa -- and they didn't need all the craziness and frantic over-engineering that goes on in JS frameworks. The problem is everybody in the web rebuilds the whole UI from low level primitives. Need a wizard? Make one yourself. Need a form? Build it. No upfront structure to anything -- and the frameworks don't add enough either.
- ivan_gammel 9y ago
  User interfaces are not just forms and wizards. You cannot build everything from a high level template. That's why the whole UX discipline exists.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >User interfaces are not just forms and wizards. Never said they were. Just used them as two basic examples, that web UIs still overcomplicate and have problems with. >You cannot build everything from a high level template. That's why the whole UX discipline exists. The UX discipline exists for a totally orthogonal reason: to study, understand, and suggest improvements to the design of interfaces (and the resulting "user experience" with them), whether they are made with a "high level template" or not. You still need UX if you everything with the basic Cocoa controls or Windows standard widgets or whatever. The kind of UIs you can do in native, beyond forms and wizards, the web can't even dream of. The inverse is not true (except if you do your whole thing in Canvas or WebGL which defeats the purpose).

disiplus 9y ago

you dont really need all this if you want a simple presentations website. most of those things are for more complex web applications. a lot of times where i end up is using jquery and some templating like handlebars to show some ajax response. if its something simple its not wrong to use jquery or vanila javascript, you dont have to use those complex tools.

Mitranim 9y ago
Correct. Most websites are better off with static HTML or server-side rendering and the least possible amount of JS. However some apps DO have to be fat. And don't forget about Node.js.