Although today's platform tech is amazing (run the same code/app across multiple device types, multiple OSes, wide range of sizes, scale to millions of users, e

Although today's platform tech is amazing (run the same code/app across multiple device types, multiple OSes, wide range of sizes, scale to millions of users, etc.), at the app building level it is indeed disappointing. In the era you describe, table libraries could connect to a backend data store via queries, then the layers of machinery could figure out how to write changes back to the data store (either automatically, or with developer hinting on complex cases). Sometimes with a setting to choose between optimistic or pessimistic concurrency, etc. I suspect the next big wave of web app development technology will span client+server tiers, keep most of today's advantages, and re-add the higher-level abstractions from that era. Best case, this will meaningfully reduce application development cost and time.