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There's enough tooling as it stands. In-browser devtools are a veritable kitchen sink of possibilities to tap into. And even a cursory glance at some open sourc

There's enough tooling as it stands. In-browser devtools are a veritable kitchen sink of possibilities to tap into. And even a cursory glance at some open source projects on Github yields a plethora of tools, modules and snippets of code to use in your project. In essence you can do anything you want with some JS, CSS, and HTML. This is the beauty of the web. We get lost when we ask for more tools and techniques to do things. It's like a massive collective hallucination that the current stack(s) for developing are unworthy or need to be drastically improved. Yes, progress is good, but we've reached a tipping point IMHO.

qwerty456127 7y ago
True, nevertheless the current stack(s) for developing needs to be drastically improved as long as it is meant to be a platform for building apps and not only for publishing documents. I recall how easy and fun it was to build apps with Delphi and alike IDEs and now the whole React&Friends stack scares the shit out of me.
- tru3_power 7y ago
  What scares you about it? React seems pretty easy to use?
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    When I make a WinForms app in VisualStudio I just drag-drop controls, click them and adjust properties the way I want, then click the controls and write the code which is going to execute in particular events. I have never had to learn this, I didn't need a single tutorial. Once upon a time I've just got a junior C# developer job (without knowing anything but basic C++ and SQL), were given a computer and a real task and implemented a reasonable good-looking (looking and feeling the way common to all the Windows apps) business app that went straight to production just in some hours. And I didn't need anything but intuition and the API reference. It felt exactly like playing Lego. Despite I also know basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript (I've learnt during the WindowsNT4 years) I have no bloody idea of what to do to get an approximately same result with today web-based front-end technologies. I've seen some React code and it seems pretty extraterrestrial. What scares me is the amount of what I need to learn before I can produce a useful application. And it seems (and feels the scariest) Photoshop and the art of visual design are on the list.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    Open a SwiftUI tutorial and build the same thing in React + CSS. By the time you've thrown your laptop out of a window trying to make elements stay in correct positions relative to each other and the page, a desktop or a mobile developer will have shipped a production-ready app with 10 times the number of layouts and features. Hell, a dev from 2000 will have shipped 10 times the amount of layouts in half the time with Delphi or C++ Builder. Edit: Someone linked Figma's blog post on how they ended up "creating a browser inside a browser" for their complex and amazing app to work: https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the-web/ https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-to...
- megaman821 7y ago
  If you are throwing RAD tooling in, aren't things like WooForms and SquareSpace in the same arena?
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    Can they produce an app you can run on a server (or localhost) of your own?
    - omnimus 7y ago
      Webflow can make you the ui part that you can host. In fact i think lot of devs start to use it this way.
thwarted 7y ago
So many things get needlessly replaced for a mix of these reasons: • ignorance: someone hasn't taken the time to understand what it does or how to use it. • maturity: the existing thing is perceived as "old", "fragile", "prone to error", not conforming to current expectations and norms (oddly, norms that the existing thing put in place). This perception is influenced by the ignorance mentioned above. • ego: the replacer's name isn't on the established thing. • hubris: the current state of the art is fragmented, and will finally be unified under a new regime, and only a new guard and new stewards can do this. There's a difference between (a) continuously making things better/adjusting to new requirements, and (b) forever creating Brooks' style Second Systems. Recognizing when the line has been crossed or that the thinking and approach is tending towards (b) is more art than science and by then the tipping point was way in the past.

qwerty456127 7y ago

True, nevertheless the current stack(s) for developing needs to be drastically improved as long as it is meant to be a platform for building apps and not only for publishing documents. I recall how easy and fun it was to build apps with Delphi and alike IDEs and now the whole React&Friends stack scares the shit out of me.

tru3_power 7y ago
What scares you about it? React seems pretty easy to use?
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  When I make a WinForms app in VisualStudio I just drag-drop controls, click them and adjust properties the way I want, then click the controls and write the code which is going to execute in particular events. I have never had to learn this, I didn't need a single tutorial. Once upon a time I've just got a junior C# developer job (without knowing anything but basic C++ and SQL), were given a computer and a real task and implemented a reasonable good-looking (looking and feeling the way common to all the Windows apps) business app that went straight to production just in some hours. And I didn't need anything but intuition and the API reference. It felt exactly like playing Lego. Despite I also know basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript (I've learnt during the WindowsNT4 years) I have no bloody idea of what to do to get an approximately same result with today web-based front-end technologies. I've seen some React code and it seems pretty extraterrestrial. What scares me is the amount of what I need to learn before I can produce a useful application. And it seems (and feels the scariest) Photoshop and the art of visual design are on the list.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  Open a SwiftUI tutorial and build the same thing in React + CSS. By the time you've thrown your laptop out of a window trying to make elements stay in correct positions relative to each other and the page, a desktop or a mobile developer will have shipped a production-ready app with 10 times the number of layouts and features. Hell, a dev from 2000 will have shipped 10 times the amount of layouts in half the time with Delphi or C++ Builder. Edit: Someone linked Figma's blog post on how they ended up "creating a browser inside a browser" for their complex and amazing app to work: https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the-web/ https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-to...
megaman821 7y ago
If you are throwing RAD tooling in, aren't things like WooForms and SquareSpace in the same arena?
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  Can they produce an app you can run on a server (or localhost) of your own?
  - omnimus 7y ago
    Webflow can make you the ui part that you can host. In fact i think lot of devs start to use it this way.

thwarted 7y ago

So many things get needlessly replaced for a mix of these reasons: • ignorance: someone hasn't taken the time to understand what it does or how to use it. • maturity: the existing thing is perceived as "old", "fragile", "prone to error", not conforming to current expectations and norms (oddly, norms that the existing thing put in place). This perception is influenced by the ignorance mentioned above. • ego: the replacer's name isn't on the established thing. • hubris: the current state of the art is fragmented, and will finally be unified under a new regime, and only a new guard and new stewards can do this. There's a difference between (a) continuously making things better/adjusting to new requirements, and (b) forever creating Brooks' style Second Systems. Recognizing when the line has been crossed or that the thinking and approach is tending towards (b) is more art than science and by then the tipping point was way in the past.