I still remember how excited I was as a wannabe fullstack rails dev in 2012 trying explore more single-page-style UX. It felt like I was pursuing the "unified w

I still remember how excited I was as a wannabe fullstack rails dev in 2012 trying explore more single-page-style UX. It felt like I was pursuing the "unified web" theory this article's title sucked me in with. "Could I make the UI less sluggish by writing a boatload more JS?" types of thoughts. Ten years later we still have backend-rendered and frontend-rendered camps. Some of my rollercoaster ride has been filled with useless pursuits (coffeescript! I used to love how clean it was. Old style angularjs jargon like `$scope` and directives. The list goes on...). But overall I strangely think it has been worth it to keep up. The main champions have been SQL, HTML, and JS -- I use them heavily, across whatever newfangled trend I'm pursuing. I'm thankful a lot of what I learned over the years is still applicable, even as I (willingly) get yanked around by the hottest trends.