3 ms·

I'm sorry, but the web development experience is god awful compared to the 90s development experience using something like delphi or even (ugh) visual basic th

I'm sorry, but the web development experience is god awful compared to the 90s development experience using something like delphi or even (ugh) visual basic the UI was consistent across the entire platform, all the accessibility worked out of the box yes, the main advantage is that the web runs on "everything", but then the added complexity of needing 4 different programming languages and half a dozen build tools don't put it in a state where it has "never been easier" even Java+Swing was better in pretty much every respect (other than providing employment for tens of "web developers")

namdnay 4y ago
For me, VB + Visual Studio was the highlight of late 90s programming - true drag&drop wysiwyg ui design, a clean link between code and ui, lightning fast prototyping. ahhh good times
- edgyquant 4y ago
  It’s hilarious seeing people praise VB when at the time it was a running joke holding the same reluctant acceptance among devs as JS does today.
  - blibble 4y ago
    those people didn't try Borland's tools :) (same as people who <3 visual studio today obviously haven't tried JetBrains...)
gjvc 4y ago
correct. as an industry we threw out battle-tested GUI toolkits and programming models for something completely backward. 15-20 years later we have excel in the browser. great. The no-deployment (for deployment is too often an after-thought of the main functionality) model was too attractive and blinded people to the costs. The 90s were great, not because they had the best experiences possible at the time, but because there was such anticipation for the future. Sadly the web did not evolve quickly enough, and we have been paying the price ever since. The only place where GUI apps have reigned supreme is in trading applications in finance, although I suspect that dominance is beginning to erode.
cxr 4y ago
> the added complexity of needing [...] half a dozen build tools You don't need those for the Web. You can choose to use them. You can choose not to, too.

namdnay 4y ago

For me, VB + Visual Studio was the highlight of late 90s programming - true drag&drop wysiwyg ui design, a clean link between code and ui, lightning fast prototyping. ahhh good times

edgyquant 4y ago
It’s hilarious seeing people praise VB when at the time it was a running joke holding the same reluctant acceptance among devs as JS does today.
- blibble 4y ago
  those people didn't try Borland's tools :) (same as people who <3 visual studio today obviously haven't tried JetBrains...)

gjvc 4y ago

correct. as an industry we threw out battle-tested GUI toolkits and programming models for something completely backward. 15-20 years later we have excel in the browser. great. The no-deployment (for deployment is too often an after-thought of the main functionality) model was too attractive and blinded people to the costs. The 90s were great, not because they had the best experiences possible at the time, but because there was such anticipation for the future. Sadly the web did not evolve quickly enough, and we have been paying the price ever since. The only place where GUI apps have reigned supreme is in trading applications in finance, although I suspect that dominance is beginning to erode.

cxr 4y ago

> the added complexity of needing [...] half a dozen build tools You don't need those for the Web. You can choose to use them. You can choose not to, too.