4 ms·

The reason the solution doesn't seem to fit the problem is that lots of developers don't think the problem with front-end web dev is tooling/framework complexit

The reason the solution doesn't seem to fit the problem is that lots of developers don't think the problem with front-end web dev is tooling/framework complexity or overdiversity. Instead, they think the problem is stuff like: * developers are not using enough of the design pattern lore developed for use with static manifestly/class-y typed languages like Java * JavaScript is terrible because you have to think about `this`, because wat, because prototypes, because the aesthetics of another language are better, etc * mutability or missing functional purity * the type system isn't type-y enough * CSS is terrible * how do you know if you're a real developer if there isn't a build step * do you even modern bro And you can route around these problems by switching languages. WASM to the rescue! I suppose we'll get the chance to find out to what degree those are really The Problem With Development.™

abritinthebay 8y ago
I always characterize it as “the problem with web development is that it doesn’t work how my favorite language works and UI is easy anyhow, lol” ... and, while that is a slightly unfair characterization, I’ve seen many arguments that can be boiled down to that without losing any nuance right here in HN.
marcus_holmes 8y ago
yeah. I love Go and I enjoy javascript. For completely different reasons, and many of the things I love about Go I hate about JS, and vice versa. It's either an incredibly minority viewpoint, or an incredibly silent majority, though. I think partly because it neatly divides along Static vs Dynamic religious war lines. I'm going to be really interested in writing some front-end code in Go, just like I was interested in writing some back-end stuff in Node. But I have the feeling that I'll quickly revert back to writing the backend in Go and the frontend in JS. Not out of tradition or tooling, but purely because they've been designed/evolved as better languages for those roles.
mmargerum 8y ago
My background is strongly typed languages and I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years. I recently built an app in js/vue and I loved it. JS is incredibly powerful. I never really enjoyed writing a bunch of scaffolding anyhow.

abritinthebay 8y ago

I always characterize it as “the problem with web development is that it doesn’t work how my favorite language works and UI is easy anyhow, lol” ... and, while that is a slightly unfair characterization, I’ve seen many arguments that can be boiled down to that without losing any nuance right here in HN.

marcus_holmes 8y ago

yeah. I love Go and I enjoy javascript. For completely different reasons, and many of the things I love about Go I hate about JS, and vice versa. It's either an incredibly minority viewpoint, or an incredibly silent majority, though. I think partly because it neatly divides along Static vs Dynamic religious war lines. I'm going to be really interested in writing some front-end code in Go, just like I was interested in writing some back-end stuff in Node. But I have the feeling that I'll quickly revert back to writing the backend in Go and the frontend in JS. Not out of tradition or tooling, but purely because they've been designed/evolved as better languages for those roles.

mmargerum 8y ago

My background is strongly typed languages and I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years. I recently built an app in js/vue and I loved it. JS is incredibly powerful. I never really enjoyed writing a bunch of scaffolding anyhow.