2 ms·

Yeah I kinda agree with this. I'm not old enough to remember the pre-Web era but I did my share of research and know that hackers of the previous generation doe

by gwn7 8y ago

Yeah I kinda agree with this. I'm not old enough to remember the pre-Web era but I did my share of research and know that hackers of the previous generation does not hold much love for the Web, and I'm convinced that it's for good reasons. Nowadays I feel the same way. But this problem is not specific to our generation as far as I understand. Maybe the thing that sucks the most that became big in our generation is the Web, but weren't there similar scenarios before us as well? Doesn't Linux suck? Systemd? Java? Doesn't every freaking mainstream technology suck? I regularly come across rants from significant developers regarding this issue. There probably is no way to prevent this from happening. Because worse is unfortunately better. I regularly and seriously consider to leave software development because of this (as I'm really suffering) but then I remember how much power it gives me despite the horrible faults it has. I think it's very important to understand that the tools we work with mostly suck. In my opinion this is something that is missing from software education curriculums. People need to know and understand how and why everything is messed up and how can we work around this issue while preserving our mental health and the intellectual satisfaction we are supposed to get from the craft.

zeroname 8y ago
> Doesn't every freaking mainstream technology suck? I regularly come across rants from significant developers regarding this issue. There probably is no way to prevent this from happening. Because worse is unfortunately better. Web technology is fundamentally different in that you have a big standards body regulating everything from layout down to color blending, then leave it up to multiple vendors to implement all that stuff at great expense and with long delay. Worse, it's all shoehorned on top of some "document model" than was never designed with applications in mind. It's a waste. To see what a better platform could look like, consider this: https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/publications/atlantis-robust-extensible-execution-environments-forweb-applications https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/publications/atlantis-robus... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI The key here is reducing surface area. It's entirely possible that WASM will bring us closer to that, but the web developers of today probably won't like that. > I regularly and seriously consider to leave software development because of this (as I'm really suffering) but then I remember how much power it gives me despite the horrible faults it has. I don't know what you do, but I find web development to be significantly more frustrating than other areas. That doesn't mean there isn't frustration elsewhere though and it's definitely part of the job.

by gwn7 8y ago

zeroname 8y ago

> Doesn't every freaking mainstream technology suck? I regularly come across rants from significant developers regarding this issue. There probably is no way to prevent this from happening. Because worse is unfortunately better. Web technology is fundamentally different in that you have a big standards body regulating everything from layout down to color blending, then leave it up to multiple vendors to implement all that stuff at great expense and with long delay. Worse, it's all shoehorned on top of some "document model" than was never designed with applications in mind. It's a waste. To see what a better platform could look like, consider this: https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/publications/atlantis-robust-extensible-execution-environments-forweb-applications https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/publications/atlantis-robus... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI The key here is reducing surface area. It's entirely possible that WASM will bring us closer to that, but the web developers of today probably won't like that. > I regularly and seriously consider to leave software development because of this (as I'm really suffering) but then I remember how much power it gives me despite the horrible faults it has. I don't know what you do, but I find web development to be significantly more frustrating than other areas. That doesn't mean there isn't frustration elsewhere though and it's definitely part of the job.