I've had similar thoughts. It's funny to me that it is possible to make a Diablo 3 clone in Unreal Engine without a single line of code, and yet simple two dime

I've had similar thoughts. It's funny to me that it is possible to make a Diablo 3 clone in Unreal Engine without a single line of code, and yet simple two dimensional pages featuring largely consistent widgets (dropdowns, input fields, text boxes, scrolling, etc) is still such an unnecessarily massive undertaking. I think web development is kind of a gateway drug into the rest of software development for a lot of people. New devs often start with Javascript if they aren't coming from a college, so I think there is definitely some value in keeping the web using hand written software (to not further gatekeep the profession), but I agree with you entirely. Web development, I think, is complexity for complexity's sake. I think people that master it are legitimately very talented engineers, I just wish engineers spent that time and talent on more interesting problems. I am not speaking negatively about Javascript or front end development, I think it's incredibly difficult to do well and applaud those that pull it off. I just don't think it needs to be.