5 ms·

What a sad state “modern” web dev is in. I’m glad that I’m living in a much faster and simpler world, but I fear, for end users and developers alike, that it i

What a sad state “modern” web dev is in. I’m glad that I’m living in a much faster and simpler world, but I fear, for end users and developers alike, that it is an ever shrinking one. I really can’t understand the appeal of what, to my eyes, amount to endless layers of needless complexity. I wish articles such as this one were more common: https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-tech https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-... This is the web I want and love.

hsn915 4y ago
With modern hardware it is very easy to serve millions of daily users from a single machine with simple software. No one bothers because everyone loves their fast-as-a-snail framework in their favorite slow scripting language and they need massive infrastructure to scale it to serve less than 1k concurrent users. Programmers have no one to blame but themselves.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Speak for yourself. Tools these days are much more ergonomic, not to mention faster than ever before. I host a website on DigitalOcean with 0.5 GB RAM and 1 vCPU that can support millions of requests and runs with just a git push. Try doing that in the 90s.
  - joosters 4y ago
    In the 90s, it was all different. Back then, we had to type ‘make install’.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    We did and do. Also, git push works with PHP as well. So does rsync. Just put some files on a server with whichever protocol you choose. Easy peasy.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  I always feel bad when I see novice programmers herded toward frameworks like Flask and Express for uncomplicated API cases, you can take your pick of mature C#, Rust, Java and C++ API frameworks that serve ~7,000,000 responses per second compared to Express' and Flask's ~123,000 and ~15,000 respectively.
  - JoeyJoJoJr 4y ago
    Which would you recommend?
    - intelVISA 4y ago
      The best one is the one that fits your use case and ecosystem :')
  - deeter72 4y ago
    This is a gross generalization. And I'm not sure where you are picking up those values from as well or their accuracy, for Flask is ~15,000 on uWsgi or Gunicorn? or the default werkzeug dev server? How you deploy matters very much I'm sure you'd understand. However, Ultimately development teams make do with the skillset they have and saved development time is saved money. Who cares of the toolset, Most programmers forget about the business objectives ultimately. Instagram's backend was originally Django, they managed just fine for a long time. Using C++ is pretty overkill even for a simple API project and potentially a huge waste of developer time, people seem to forget developer time is expensive.
    - intelVISA 4y ago
      I don't think it's fair to call it a gross overgeneralization; good software engineering is being able to evaluate and select the right tool(s) for the job than try to bastardize their fave lang into everything. The numbers were from skimming TechEmpower's benchmarks. I don't have a horse in the race as I don't do (much) web dev but I found the disparity amusing even if the reality isn't quite so bleak due to, as you mentioned, many other factors before you even hit the application itself. Ultimately I agree with you, I'd rather see someone use a framework they're comfortable with if it makes their life easier - but I won't lie to them and pretend it's optimal.
woojoo666 4y ago
> I wish articles such as this one were more common: > https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-tech https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-... > This is the web I want and love. Worth noting that according to their article, Standard EBooks does not use javascript on their page. This might work for them, and it might work for you, but in many cases users want SPAs and interactivity (Google Maps, Google Docs, etc)
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  SPAs and interactivity are different and independent things.
- dham 4y ago
  > users want I hear that so much, except they don't. Most sites aren't Figma. What we're seeing is the proliferation of apps that have been traditionally just desktop apps, but being made for the web. We have to distinguish the web as an app delivery tool (Google Docs, Figma) vs what most developers are writing. CRUD apps. And for those you can ask the server for state often.
- hsn915 4y ago
  Users don't want SPAs. Users want software that works reliably. Most SPAs are anything but reliable. If you talk to most non programmers, they hate computers and software and think pretty much all software sucks. Sure, maps and docs are not possible without client side programming, but most websites are actually not maps nor docs.
  - Winsaucerer 4y ago
    > Most SPAs are anything but reliable. If you talk to most non programmers, they hate computers and software and think pretty much all software sucks. Expanding on this, I had a Dell XPS 9550 running Linux until the M1 Macbook came out. The XPS was a pretty powerful machine when I first bought it, but as always happens, hardware requirements for software increased while my hardware stayed static. And the software whose requirements increased: websites, and specifically SPA's. It was absolutely noticeable visiting many (but not all) SPA's, with Jira being the worst offender, just how slow those websites are. It doesn't have to be much slower to just grind at you, and for you to want to finish and leave that site as quickly as possible. Now I have a much faster desktop with a 5950x processor, and a Macbook Air M1 for when I'm moving around. I don't notice the website slowness anymore (except on reddit perhaps), and it isn't really an issue for me anymore. But I'm a software developer among other things, and I spend a lot of time on computers, so I get good hardware. We who are developers are likely an exception to the general population who will be experiencing the web as I did on my XPS, or perhaps even worse.
dham 4y ago
I think our industry will have a wake up call during the recession. At least I hope so. Companies need so many people because developers have become parasites sucking up all company resources writing a two text field form.
rglover 4y ago
For JS developers trying to achieve what's outlined in the linked article: https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick Very thin abstractions over HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Node.js that don't separate you from what you're trying to ship to the browser: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No "magic" or "hacks," just a bit of plumbing to make you more productive.
throwaway0asd 4y ago
A framework is a boxed architecture. That appeals to some people more than others. Architecture is just a matter of organization. Ease with basic organization is what separates experts from laymen in any field.
- mrex 4y ago
  >Architecture is just a matter of organization. Have to say, I think that's somewhat oversimplifying. Architecture is a lot more than organization. It's also a broad and deep understanding of external and internal resources, the creative design process, corporate vision, industry insight, risk analysis, project management, stakeholder politics, marketing, and technology. It's very possible to be super organized but still end up with a discombobulated frankenstein of a project, or one that's under water on time or budget, or a design that's too niche and misses the market.
  - brandall10 4y ago
    Right, if we want to paint it with a broad brush, it’s system design. A software architect seems to be a dirty word in some parts, but it’s really just someone who has deep knowledge of various tools, services, etc, and are able to aptly design a system to serve the businesses needs without under/over-architecting.
tjpnz 4y ago
I've spent the previous month working with React for the first time and I find myself longing for the simpler days. There's absolutely no reason why it was needed for this project, much less for it needing to be a SPA. The codebase is bloated, the dev environment is slow and unwieldy (even on my M1 Max) and just doing simple things takes longer. The only small saving grace is we're using TypeScript. If we're ever in a position to rewrite it I'll be pushing hard for Rails or Django with simple server rendered HTML. Anything less would be doing us and our internal customers a disservice in terms of how quickly we can deliver features.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  I'm not pro-react but I find it much saner than rails/django. My brain can't wrap writing server side blend of js and html, the component way makes code pretty clean right away, and live reload is faster in vue/react than django (afaik). Not saying that the js world is great by any mean, or that in your case simple html templates would do, but most of the time I rapidly feel the need to have react/vue to make things clearer or safer (and prettier).
- jjdeveloper 4y ago
  Have you tried Astro. Lets you get back to basic html, css and it’s not a SPA but an old school MPA. Lets you use react or similar for any interactive component but without SPA complexity. Worth a look but always depends on what your needs are.

hsn915 4y ago

With modern hardware it is very easy to serve millions of daily users from a single machine with simple software. No one bothers because everyone loves their fast-as-a-snail framework in their favorite slow scripting language and they need massive infrastructure to scale it to serve less than 1k concurrent users. Programmers have no one to blame but themselves.

cercatrova 4y ago
Speak for yourself. Tools these days are much more ergonomic, not to mention faster than ever before. I host a website on DigitalOcean with 0.5 GB RAM and 1 vCPU that can support millions of requests and runs with just a git push. Try doing that in the 90s.
- joosters 4y ago
  In the 90s, it was all different. Back then, we had to type ‘make install’.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  We did and do. Also, git push works with PHP as well. So does rsync. Just put some files on a server with whichever protocol you choose. Easy peasy.
intelVISA 4y ago
I always feel bad when I see novice programmers herded toward frameworks like Flask and Express for uncomplicated API cases, you can take your pick of mature C#, Rust, Java and C++ API frameworks that serve ~7,000,000 responses per second compared to Express' and Flask's ~123,000 and ~15,000 respectively.
- JoeyJoJoJr 4y ago
  Which would you recommend?
  - intelVISA 4y ago
    The best one is the one that fits your use case and ecosystem :')
- deeter72 4y ago
  This is a gross generalization. And I'm not sure where you are picking up those values from as well or their accuracy, for Flask is ~15,000 on uWsgi or Gunicorn? or the default werkzeug dev server? How you deploy matters very much I'm sure you'd understand. However, Ultimately development teams make do with the skillset they have and saved development time is saved money. Who cares of the toolset, Most programmers forget about the business objectives ultimately. Instagram's backend was originally Django, they managed just fine for a long time. Using C++ is pretty overkill even for a simple API project and potentially a huge waste of developer time, people seem to forget developer time is expensive.
  - intelVISA 4y ago
    I don't think it's fair to call it a gross overgeneralization; good software engineering is being able to evaluate and select the right tool(s) for the job than try to bastardize their fave lang into everything. The numbers were from skimming TechEmpower's benchmarks. I don't have a horse in the race as I don't do (much) web dev but I found the disparity amusing even if the reality isn't quite so bleak due to, as you mentioned, many other factors before you even hit the application itself. Ultimately I agree with you, I'd rather see someone use a framework they're comfortable with if it makes their life easier - but I won't lie to them and pretend it's optimal.

woojoo666 4y ago

> I wish articles such as this one were more common: > https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-tech https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-... > This is the web I want and love. Worth noting that according to their article, Standard EBooks does not use javascript on their page. This might work for them, and it might work for you, but in many cases users want SPAs and interactivity (Google Maps, Google Docs, etc)

tambourine_man 4y ago
SPAs and interactivity are different and independent things.
dham 4y ago
> users want I hear that so much, except they don't. Most sites aren't Figma. What we're seeing is the proliferation of apps that have been traditionally just desktop apps, but being made for the web. We have to distinguish the web as an app delivery tool (Google Docs, Figma) vs what most developers are writing. CRUD apps. And for those you can ask the server for state often.
hsn915 4y ago
Users don't want SPAs. Users want software that works reliably. Most SPAs are anything but reliable. If you talk to most non programmers, they hate computers and software and think pretty much all software sucks. Sure, maps and docs are not possible without client side programming, but most websites are actually not maps nor docs.
- Winsaucerer 4y ago
  > Most SPAs are anything but reliable. If you talk to most non programmers, they hate computers and software and think pretty much all software sucks. Expanding on this, I had a Dell XPS 9550 running Linux until the M1 Macbook came out. The XPS was a pretty powerful machine when I first bought it, but as always happens, hardware requirements for software increased while my hardware stayed static. And the software whose requirements increased: websites, and specifically SPA's. It was absolutely noticeable visiting many (but not all) SPA's, with Jira being the worst offender, just how slow those websites are. It doesn't have to be much slower to just grind at you, and for you to want to finish and leave that site as quickly as possible. Now I have a much faster desktop with a 5950x processor, and a Macbook Air M1 for when I'm moving around. I don't notice the website slowness anymore (except on reddit perhaps), and it isn't really an issue for me anymore. But I'm a software developer among other things, and I spend a lot of time on computers, so I get good hardware. We who are developers are likely an exception to the general population who will be experiencing the web as I did on my XPS, or perhaps even worse.

dham 4y ago

I think our industry will have a wake up call during the recession. At least I hope so. Companies need so many people because developers have become parasites sucking up all company resources writing a two text field form.

rglover 4y ago

For JS developers trying to achieve what's outlined in the linked article: https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick Very thin abstractions over HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Node.js that don't separate you from what you're trying to ship to the browser: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No "magic" or "hacks," just a bit of plumbing to make you more productive.

throwaway0asd 4y ago

A framework is a boxed architecture. That appeals to some people more than others. Architecture is just a matter of organization. Ease with basic organization is what separates experts from laymen in any field.

mrex 4y ago
>Architecture is just a matter of organization. Have to say, I think that's somewhat oversimplifying. Architecture is a lot more than organization. It's also a broad and deep understanding of external and internal resources, the creative design process, corporate vision, industry insight, risk analysis, project management, stakeholder politics, marketing, and technology. It's very possible to be super organized but still end up with a discombobulated frankenstein of a project, or one that's under water on time or budget, or a design that's too niche and misses the market.
- brandall10 4y ago
  Right, if we want to paint it with a broad brush, it’s system design. A software architect seems to be a dirty word in some parts, but it’s really just someone who has deep knowledge of various tools, services, etc, and are able to aptly design a system to serve the businesses needs without under/over-architecting.

tjpnz 4y ago

I've spent the previous month working with React for the first time and I find myself longing for the simpler days. There's absolutely no reason why it was needed for this project, much less for it needing to be a SPA. The codebase is bloated, the dev environment is slow and unwieldy (even on my M1 Max) and just doing simple things takes longer. The only small saving grace is we're using TypeScript. If we're ever in a position to rewrite it I'll be pushing hard for Rails or Django with simple server rendered HTML. Anything less would be doing us and our internal customers a disservice in terms of how quickly we can deliver features.

agumonkey 4y ago
I'm not pro-react but I find it much saner than rails/django. My brain can't wrap writing server side blend of js and html, the component way makes code pretty clean right away, and live reload is faster in vue/react than django (afaik). Not saying that the js world is great by any mean, or that in your case simple html templates would do, but most of the time I rapidly feel the need to have react/vue to make things clearer or safer (and prettier).
jjdeveloper 4y ago
Have you tried Astro. Lets you get back to basic html, css and it’s not a SPA but an old school MPA. Lets you use react or similar for any interactive component but without SPA complexity. Worth a look but always depends on what your needs are.