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Web development is just starting to catch up to where we were fifteen years ago. Things like type safety, unit testing, and dependency management are still fair

Web development is just starting to catch up to where we were fifteen years ago. Things like type safety, unit testing, and dependency management are still fairly new on the Javascript side of the house, and I'd argue that Maven is lightyears ahead of NPM or pack or gulp or whatever the fuck the kids are using these days. The UI side is even worse. When you compare $todays_web_framework to QT or Swing, it's like dropping into some terrible alternate timeline where the size of a thing on-screen can only be divined by spraying the proper mixture of cattle bones and chicken entrails on a ouija board beneath a blood moon.

chrisco255 9y ago
We intentionally moved from Qt to Electron for desktop app development. Electron apps look better generally and are far easier to maintain than Qt-based apps. CSS has its warts but it's very expressive these days. Don't even get me started on Swing versus React. A decent set of React components are more declarative, easier to maintain, and faster to develop with than Swing. You also have powerful testing tools in React like Jest snapshots and Enzyme, which allow you to inspect and test the output of your UI in ways that are not straightforward with Swing.
- skocznymroczny 9y ago
  Swing has been obsolete for quite some while, if anything, compare with JavaFX
brucephillips 9y ago
Interesting. What's a specific example of how QT or swing is superior to web tech?
- cjalmeida 9y ago
  It is not, at least in 2017. Qt5 is great, specially with QrQuick, but you need to commit to C++ and that's a problem in itself. (No, the Python binding are unholy with restrictive license and poor docs) Swing is on a whole other level of verbosity. For anything more complex, you actually need a GUI editor. Need an actually good looking set of widgets or even simple customizations? You have way less options than what's available in CSS and have to resort to Graphics2d drawing. And Maven sucks, use Gradle instead.
rmrfrmrf 9y ago
> I'd argue that Maven is lightyears ahead of NPM or pack or gulp or whatever the fuck the kids are using these days. Would you? You think a build system that’s so pointlessly convoluted and verbose that you’re literally encouraged to resort to copy-pasting blocks of XML and using fucking Eclipse to accomplish even the most basic tasks is somehow superior to package.json or Gulpfile.js setups?
chickenfries 9y ago
This comment is overly dramatic and immature.

chrisco255 9y ago

We intentionally moved from Qt to Electron for desktop app development. Electron apps look better generally and are far easier to maintain than Qt-based apps. CSS has its warts but it's very expressive these days. Don't even get me started on Swing versus React. A decent set of React components are more declarative, easier to maintain, and faster to develop with than Swing. You also have powerful testing tools in React like Jest snapshots and Enzyme, which allow you to inspect and test the output of your UI in ways that are not straightforward with Swing.

skocznymroczny 9y ago
Swing has been obsolete for quite some while, if anything, compare with JavaFX

brucephillips 9y ago

Interesting. What's a specific example of how QT or swing is superior to web tech?

cjalmeida 9y ago
It is not, at least in 2017. Qt5 is great, specially with QrQuick, but you need to commit to C++ and that's a problem in itself. (No, the Python binding are unholy with restrictive license and poor docs) Swing is on a whole other level of verbosity. For anything more complex, you actually need a GUI editor. Need an actually good looking set of widgets or even simple customizations? You have way less options than what's available in CSS and have to resort to Graphics2d drawing. And Maven sucks, use Gradle instead.

rmrfrmrf 9y ago

> I'd argue that Maven is lightyears ahead of NPM or pack or gulp or whatever the fuck the kids are using these days. Would you? You think a build system that’s so pointlessly convoluted and verbose that you’re literally encouraged to resort to copy-pasting blocks of XML and using fucking Eclipse to accomplish even the most basic tasks is somehow superior to package.json or Gulpfile.js setups?

chickenfries 9y ago

This comment is overly dramatic and immature.