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Shouldn't it be "to improve the web for users" ? Developer Experience is important, but it shouldn't be focused on in isolation from User Experience. If we were

Shouldn't it be "to improve the web for users" ? Developer Experience is important, but it shouldn't be focused on in isolation from User Experience. If we were just talking about improving an IDE, it's fine, but "the web" is about much more than development. Personally I think the way web browsers work is kind of insane from a user perspective. "The Web" is obsessed with technical expertise and custom code. An application like MS PowerPoint (pick any other design tool you prefer) is designed for users to create multi-layered media content and display it anywhere, without requiring a college degree or months/years of experience to make something. I don't think people who actively work on the web have considered how over-complicated it all is. For an industry that talks obsessively about "innovation" and "disruption", it can't seem to conceive of a post-web-browser world.

alvarlagerlof 5y ago
If development is bad/hard due to inconsistencies needing extra tools for cross-browser, the experience is likely to be worse than necessary for users too. Usually very connected. Never saw something good made with Silverlight.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  There's some truth to this. That said - speaking for a friend - (bad) UX designers and (bad) web designers consistently do more damage to users than a friction-y developer experience.
jacobmischka 5y ago
Sure, but they're focusing specifically on things that developers are already doing but are just more of a pain than they should be, usually requiring hacky workarounds, preprocessors, or browser specific overrides.
alwillis 5y ago
If they get the interoperability right, the result will less JavaScript to download and fewer hacks. Users will get a faster and less klugey web experience across the board.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  Yes. But faster doesn't necessarily mean better. I mean of course we don't want slow. But a fast loading shite experience is still shite.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
There are places where improvements on both dev experience and user experience intersect. For example, if the big browsers all delivered a much more robust set of easily styleable standard widgets, that would benefit devs by reducing the amount of custom widget work needed and benefit users with more consistent behavior and reduced payload sizes. Things like that should be prioritized the most. Once all of that is taken care of, browser vendors could start doing cycles of switching between focus on dev experience and user experience.
hombre_fatal 5y ago
Well, the MS PowerPoint analogue would be any of the tools users use to build content on the web today. My dad runs a Shopify store with a theme he liked and modified. My sisters use Squarespace for their projects and similar tools with massive theme collections to choose from. One of them, originally very non-technical, even learned Twitter Bootstrap when she wanted to go her own way. The MS PowerPoint user doesn't care about what the Windows application developers are talking about on Windows Hacker News, either. Also, I think we pat ourselves too hard on the back when we go "surely all this stuff is way too complicated for people." Frankly, things are just becoming easier and easier.
- askonomm 5y ago
  I'm not sure this makes sense. My wife is learning front-end development now as I did 15 years ago and holy shit, to get an actual job you need to basically somehow magically become a mid-level engineer. Unit/automated testing, myriad of FE frameworks, OO and FP, CSS/Less/Sass (grid, flex, cascade, etc), multiple build tools, and this just to get your first job.
jdrc 5y ago
they can always compete for that though, but you don't want them to compete for the protocols

alvarlagerlof 5y ago

If development is bad/hard due to inconsistencies needing extra tools for cross-browser, the experience is likely to be worse than necessary for users too. Usually very connected. Never saw something good made with Silverlight.

chiefalchemist 5y ago
There's some truth to this. That said - speaking for a friend - (bad) UX designers and (bad) web designers consistently do more damage to users than a friction-y developer experience.

jacobmischka 5y ago

Sure, but they're focusing specifically on things that developers are already doing but are just more of a pain than they should be, usually requiring hacky workarounds, preprocessors, or browser specific overrides.

alwillis 5y ago

If they get the interoperability right, the result will less JavaScript to download and fewer hacks. Users will get a faster and less klugey web experience across the board.

chiefalchemist 5y ago
Yes. But faster doesn't necessarily mean better. I mean of course we don't want slow. But a fast loading shite experience is still shite.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

There are places where improvements on both dev experience and user experience intersect. For example, if the big browsers all delivered a much more robust set of easily styleable standard widgets, that would benefit devs by reducing the amount of custom widget work needed and benefit users with more consistent behavior and reduced payload sizes. Things like that should be prioritized the most. Once all of that is taken care of, browser vendors could start doing cycles of switching between focus on dev experience and user experience.

hombre_fatal 5y ago

Well, the MS PowerPoint analogue would be any of the tools users use to build content on the web today. My dad runs a Shopify store with a theme he liked and modified. My sisters use Squarespace for their projects and similar tools with massive theme collections to choose from. One of them, originally very non-technical, even learned Twitter Bootstrap when she wanted to go her own way. The MS PowerPoint user doesn't care about what the Windows application developers are talking about on Windows Hacker News, either. Also, I think we pat ourselves too hard on the back when we go "surely all this stuff is way too complicated for people." Frankly, things are just becoming easier and easier.

askonomm 5y ago
I'm not sure this makes sense. My wife is learning front-end development now as I did 15 years ago and holy shit, to get an actual job you need to basically somehow magically become a mid-level engineer. Unit/automated testing, myriad of FE frameworks, OO and FP, CSS/Less/Sass (grid, flex, cascade, etc), multiple build tools, and this just to get your first job.

jdrc 5y ago

they can always compete for that though, but you don't want them to compete for the protocols