8 ms·

My thought exactly, though I fully support that. I often rant about how the modern web is billions of layers of duck tape over duck tape and it has become an un

My thought exactly, though I fully support that. I often rant about how the modern web is billions of layers of duck tape over duck tape and it has become an unmanageable mess of libraries, frameworks, resources, all while javascript remains the most outrageous and absurd language ever created. I'm by no means a fan of rails or ruby for that matter but I think things like these are a considerably better alternative than all the ridiculous libraries and frameworks everyone uses, which result megabytes of javascript and require corporate-grade bandwidth and at least an 8-th gen i7 and at least 8gb of memory to open. And all that to open a website which has 3 images and a contact form. I mean someone should create a package that analyzes websites and creates a minimum requirements manifest. It's good to see that there are people who are trying to bring some sanity.

ChrisLTD 6y ago
Preach! Websites don’t seem all that much better to me than they did 10 years ago [^fn], so what are we gaining with all these much more complex and fragile tools? [fn]: Arguably, the web is worse with chat bots, sticky headers, and modals constantly vying for your attention.
- craftinator 6y ago
  > Arguably, the web is worse with chat bots, sticky headers, and modals constantly vying for your attention. We can blame this on the MBA types. I've literally never heard a software engineer say "hey, let's make this pop-up after they've already been looking at the page for a minute!" or anything like it.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    Engineers typically aren’t tasked with increasing revenue/engagement.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Unfortunately I have to disagree - if there weren't any engineers around to implement the dark patterns they wouldn't be as prevalent. Maybe this calls for an equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath but in the tech world?
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        Brick layers. Developers develop, designers design was more my point, though of course this line is blurred in many organisations.
rektide 6y ago
There is plenty of duck tape yes, But there is suprisingly little layers on layers. Part of what has been amazing about the web is that the target remains the same. There is the DOM. Everyone is trying different ways to build & update the DOM. Agreed that there are better alternatives than a lot of what is out there. We seem to be in a mass consolidation, focusing around a couple very popular systems. I am glad to see folks like Github presenting some of the better alternatives, such as their Catalyst tools[1] which speed up (developer-wise & page-wise (via "Actions") both) & give some patterns for building WebComponents. The web has been unimaginably stable a platform for building things, has retained it's spirit while allowing hundreds of different architectures for how things get built. Yes, we can make a mess of our architectures. Yes, humanity can over-consume resources. But we can also, often, do it right, and we can learn & evolve, as we have done so, over the past 30 years we've had with the web. [1] https://github.github.io/catalyst/ https://github.github.io/catalyst/
- axegon_ 6y ago
  If by surprisingly little, you mean 4 pages and 500mb of requirements for a "hello world" project with the "modern" web, then yes. The DOM has always been a mess, much like javascript. And the fact that no one has tried to do something about it contributes to the mountains of duckt tape. It was bad enough when angular showed up, but when all the other mumbo jumbo showed up like react, vue, webpack and whatnot is when it all went south. I refuse to offend compilers and call this "compiling", but the fact that npm takes the same amount of time to "compile" it's gibberish as rustc to compile a large project(with the painfully slow compilation that comes with rust by design), is a clear indication that something is utterly wrong.
  - rektide 6y ago
    Again, you are attributing to the web what a pop-culture is doing with it. While willfully ignoring all the people doing better. Maybe we are- as you fear- stuck, forever, in thick JS-to-JS transpilers & massive bundles & heavy frameworks. Maybe. I don't think so.
  - AirMax98 6y ago
fwip 6y ago
Surely your point could be made better without the hyperbole? "Most outrageous and absurd language ever," "Megabytes of javascript", "corporate-grade bandwidth", "8th-gen i7 and 8GB of memory" to open "3 images and a contact form." I'm sure you can find one or two poorly-optimized sites that have 2MB of javascript to download, but it's by no means the necessary outcome of using "ridiculous libraries and frameworks," and not even a particularly common one.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  > one or two poorly-optimized sites Try every old media site and most e-commerce.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > it's by no means the necessary outcome of using "ridiculous libraries and frameworks," and not even a particularly common one The real world disagrees with you; go check out any major website and observe as your laptop's fans spin up. However I think the main problem here isn't the symptom (websites are bloated) but the root cause of the problem. I'm not sure if it's resume-driven-development by front-end developers or that they genuinely lost the skill of pure CSS & HTML but everyone seems to be pushing for React or some kind of SPA framework even when the entire website only needs a handful of pages with no dynamic content.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
domano 6y ago
Just wanted to point out that it is called duct tape, just to avoid misunderstandings since i had a similiar spelling error as a non-native speaker :)
- dharmab 6y ago
  This error is understandable as there is a popular brand of duct tape called Duck Tape.
  - Lio 6y ago
    ...which is named after cotton-duck material tape once used for repairing ducts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_duck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_duck
- DavidAdams 6y ago
  Interestingly, waterproof fabric-based tape was originally called "duck tape" (for its waterproof quality). The same kind of tape was later also called duct tape, but it's actually pretty terrible for ducts. You want to use the all-aluminum tape for ducts. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-duct-tape https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-du...
  - domano 6y ago
    Oh wow, so there actually is something called Duck Tape. TIL
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- Igelau 6y ago
  "Duck tape" originally referred to tape made from duck cloth. They started using it for duct work, and began to call it "duct tape", to the point where "duck" fell out of common use and was able to be trademarked. They've also stopped using it for ducts. So call it either one and people will know what you're talking about.
ithrow 6y ago
Javascript as a language is actually pretty decent these days, your criticism probably applies more to certain parts of the ecosystem.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  No, I'm talking about js as a whole. Standard library is crap, inconsistent, even the most basic of naming conventions are not followed anywhere. The fact that the standard library jumps between camel case, pascal case, snake case and unicase at random is a perfect example. The list of absurdities is beyond ridiculous[1]. [1] https://github.com/denysdovhan/wtfjs https://github.com/denysdovhan/wtfjs
  - edoceo 6y ago
    Who on this thread was saying what's old is new? 100% of what you said has also been lobbed at PHP recently and I've heard similar complaint about PERL and MS-SQL (that I remember well) and I'm sure others (one of those Delphi product too)
    - mgkimsal 6y ago
      What's been strange to me though is I've heard JS advocates lobbing those criticisms at PHP, making the case for, say, why 'Node is awesome, PHP sucks'. Conflating a framework vs a language, then pointing out PHP 'issues' that also exist in JS... there's generally little point in trying to engage/correct at that point (context: primarily conference hallway conversations and meetup groups back when those actually happened).
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      JS is the new PHP. Part of the problem with massive popularity is it attracts also the lower ability devs and the ecosystem slowly degrades due to this. This cascades.
  - cutler 6y ago
    What standard library?
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Oh yeah like the 'new' reddit. It makes even the best machines cry.

ChrisLTD 6y ago

Preach! Websites don’t seem all that much better to me than they did 10 years ago [^fn], so what are we gaining with all these much more complex and fragile tools? [fn]: Arguably, the web is worse with chat bots, sticky headers, and modals constantly vying for your attention.

craftinator 6y ago
> Arguably, the web is worse with chat bots, sticky headers, and modals constantly vying for your attention. We can blame this on the MBA types. I've literally never heard a software engineer say "hey, let's make this pop-up after they've already been looking at the page for a minute!" or anything like it.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  Engineers typically aren’t tasked with increasing revenue/engagement.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Unfortunately I have to disagree - if there weren't any engineers around to implement the dark patterns they wouldn't be as prevalent. Maybe this calls for an equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath but in the tech world?
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      Brick layers. Developers develop, designers design was more my point, though of course this line is blurred in many organisations.

rektide 6y ago

There is plenty of duck tape yes, But there is suprisingly little layers on layers. Part of what has been amazing about the web is that the target remains the same. There is the DOM. Everyone is trying different ways to build & update the DOM. Agreed that there are better alternatives than a lot of what is out there. We seem to be in a mass consolidation, focusing around a couple very popular systems. I am glad to see folks like Github presenting some of the better alternatives, such as their Catalyst tools[1] which speed up (developer-wise & page-wise (via "Actions") both) & give some patterns for building WebComponents. The web has been unimaginably stable a platform for building things, has retained it's spirit while allowing hundreds of different architectures for how things get built. Yes, we can make a mess of our architectures. Yes, humanity can over-consume resources. But we can also, often, do it right, and we can learn & evolve, as we have done so, over the past 30 years we've had with the web. [1] https://github.github.io/catalyst/ https://github.github.io/catalyst/

axegon_ 6y ago
If by surprisingly little, you mean 4 pages and 500mb of requirements for a "hello world" project with the "modern" web, then yes. The DOM has always been a mess, much like javascript. And the fact that no one has tried to do something about it contributes to the mountains of duckt tape. It was bad enough when angular showed up, but when all the other mumbo jumbo showed up like react, vue, webpack and whatnot is when it all went south. I refuse to offend compilers and call this "compiling", but the fact that npm takes the same amount of time to "compile" it's gibberish as rustc to compile a large project(with the painfully slow compilation that comes with rust by design), is a clear indication that something is utterly wrong.
- rektide 6y ago
  Again, you are attributing to the web what a pop-culture is doing with it. While willfully ignoring all the people doing better. Maybe we are- as you fear- stuck, forever, in thick JS-to-JS transpilers & massive bundles & heavy frameworks. Maybe. I don't think so.
- AirMax98 6y ago

fwip 6y ago

Surely your point could be made better without the hyperbole? "Most outrageous and absurd language ever," "Megabytes of javascript", "corporate-grade bandwidth", "8th-gen i7 and 8GB of memory" to open "3 images and a contact form." I'm sure you can find one or two poorly-optimized sites that have 2MB of javascript to download, but it's by no means the necessary outcome of using "ridiculous libraries and frameworks," and not even a particularly common one.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
> one or two poorly-optimized sites Try every old media site and most e-commerce.
Nextgrid 6y ago
> it's by no means the necessary outcome of using "ridiculous libraries and frameworks," and not even a particularly common one The real world disagrees with you; go check out any major website and observe as your laptop's fans spin up. However I think the main problem here isn't the symptom (websites are bloated) but the root cause of the problem. I'm not sure if it's resume-driven-development by front-end developers or that they genuinely lost the skill of pure CSS & HTML but everyone seems to be pushing for React or some kind of SPA framework even when the entire website only needs a handful of pages with no dynamic content.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

domano 6y ago

Just wanted to point out that it is called duct tape, just to avoid misunderstandings since i had a similiar spelling error as a non-native speaker :)

dharmab 6y ago
This error is understandable as there is a popular brand of duct tape called Duck Tape.
- Lio 6y ago
  ...which is named after cotton-duck material tape once used for repairing ducts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_duck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_duck
DavidAdams 6y ago
Interestingly, waterproof fabric-based tape was originally called "duck tape" (for its waterproof quality). The same kind of tape was later also called duct tape, but it's actually pretty terrible for ducts. You want to use the all-aluminum tape for ducts. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-duct-tape https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-du...
- domano 6y ago
  Oh wow, so there actually is something called Duck Tape. TIL
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
Igelau 6y ago
"Duck tape" originally referred to tape made from duck cloth. They started using it for duct work, and began to call it "duct tape", to the point where "duck" fell out of common use and was able to be trademarked. They've also stopped using it for ducts. So call it either one and people will know what you're talking about.

ithrow 6y ago

Javascript as a language is actually pretty decent these days, your criticism probably applies more to certain parts of the ecosystem.

axegon_ 6y ago
No, I'm talking about js as a whole. Standard library is crap, inconsistent, even the most basic of naming conventions are not followed anywhere. The fact that the standard library jumps between camel case, pascal case, snake case and unicase at random is a perfect example. The list of absurdities is beyond ridiculous[1]. [1] https://github.com/denysdovhan/wtfjs https://github.com/denysdovhan/wtfjs
- edoceo 6y ago
  Who on this thread was saying what's old is new? 100% of what you said has also been lobbed at PHP recently and I've heard similar complaint about PERL and MS-SQL (that I remember well) and I'm sure others (one of those Delphi product too)
  - mgkimsal 6y ago
    What's been strange to me though is I've heard JS advocates lobbing those criticisms at PHP, making the case for, say, why 'Node is awesome, PHP sucks'. Conflating a framework vs a language, then pointing out PHP 'issues' that also exist in JS... there's generally little point in trying to engage/correct at that point (context: primarily conference hallway conversations and meetup groups back when those actually happened).
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    JS is the new PHP. Part of the problem with massive popularity is it attracts also the lower ability devs and the ecosystem slowly degrades due to this. This cascades.
- cutler 6y ago
  What standard library?

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Oh yeah like the 'new' reddit. It makes even the best machines cry.