I empathize with this point (I even up voted) but I don't entirely agree. I want to say that we should have some grand unified abstraction for describing web a

I empathize with this point (I even up voted) but I don't entirely agree. I want to say that we should have some grand unified abstraction for describing web applications but that doesn't represent reality outside of web development. We're still living in a world with multiple OSs (never mind the browser war). The technology world isn't isn't unified. if it truly were, would we be able to express solutions to arbitrary problems? Such a unified solution as you hope for would implicitly prevent the flexibility that allows for technological advancement. Ruby on Rails "golden path" approach is actually a good example of this. Development is easier following the path. Deviate and it gets tricky quickly. But at least it's possible to deviate. I believe the solution you posit would result in a black box approach to development with only one right way if even one at all. Deviation from the intended use of such a tool would likely be impossible.