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Hallelujah! I've been saying this for years and people looked at me like I was insane. JWTs are one of the biggest cult/hipster scams of the last few years.

Hallelujah! I've been saying this for years and people looked at me like I was insane. JWTs are one of the biggest cult/hipster scams of the last few years. GraphQL everywhere is another one (like JWTs, it has its uses but people went way overboard) and Tailwind is the next one.

xtracto 4y ago
I see a lot of the comments in this thread from people that apparently just do not get the problem with JWTs. I was using "presigned access/bearer tokens" way before JWT was a thing. There's multiple safe and easy ways to do authentication/authorization without providing a signed green card to the client which you don't have the ability to cancel at any time. As long as you keep control in a database.
elforce002 4y ago
What's wrong with tailwind? It made css styling accesible and easy at least for me.
- justusw 4y ago
  I agree, Tailwind seems to be out of scope here for comparison. One is about server architecture, the other one is about how to write CSS. Both have a completely different impact (JWT as a footgun vs. Tailwind improving/worsening developer comfort)
hbrn 4y ago
Microservices and Serverless are another two. IMO the only hyped up piece of tech that was actually good in the last decade is containers (but not the orchestration, just containers).
- eagsalazar2 4y ago
  Serverless? Huh I can't get onboard with that one.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    Serverless is great for scenarios where you don't want to have to worry about scaling. AWS S3 was probably the first "serverless" technology to really take off. You don't have to worry about how many hosts you need to adequately handle sharing a file with millions of people. You don't need to start up multiple hosts in order to get backups in multiple data centers and then handle synchronization. Nope, just put a file there, and everything else is handled. AWS Lambda and other FaaS providers made it so you don't have to configure scaling hosts to handle sudden large loads. It's also great for things that only need a couple minutes of CPU time per month, like say, periodically processing some data in batches. You don't have to deal with standing up a host that runs a cron job and then paying for CPU time you're not using. Serverless databases mean you don't have to worry about patching the underlying operating system. Of course, serverless has its limitations. FaaS is not suitable for long-running tasks, for example. It also tends to result in vendor lock-in. EDIT: If you're going to fire back with "AlL tHoSe ThInGs ArE sTiLl RuNnInG oN sErVeRs", don't waste your time. It's a tired argument that misses the point. Yes, they run on servers, but you don't have to care about the underlying servers.
    - hbrn 4y ago
      Infinitely scaling webservers is trivial. Serverless solves a problem that is already easy to solve. Infinitely scaling database means inevitable tradeoffs. Serverless doesn't take those tradeoffs away. It doesn't do anything to justify the hype. You get complexity, worse DX, vendor lock-in and often higher price for the sake of not having to do security updates. This is the worst deal in the history of deals, maybe ever.
      - eagsalazar2 4y ago
        Your entire last sentence, except the higher price bit, is just completely utterly false on its face. Serverless is magically simple - and that is DX, magically simple and easy to reason about. Vendor lockin?? Wat? Again utterly wrong and false. The whole point is you are running your code, you define the function bodies, they just get deployed to different serverless hosting services and it is insanely simplifying. Switching from AWS to Netlify to Vercel is not harder than switching under any other approach. About cost, even though that isn't "completely utterly false" it is misleading. If you are a startup and want to move as fast as possible without incurring tons of tech debt, and don't yet have millions of daily users, you should use serverless functions because the total cost will be relatively small (relative to the insanely high cost of good devs that is -- always optimize for DX and velocity until you actually have scale). If you ever get to the point where serverless is costing you real $$, then refactor then - you've incurred almost no tech debt by waiting and being very very fast prior to that may just be the reason you got to that scale at all. Go ahead and build a serverless app utilizing a framework that is well aligned with that approach (may I recommend Remix?) and I bet you'll change your tune. My gut tells me you have no firsthand experience because your points are absolutely off base.
Existenceblinks 4y ago
Kinda agree. Tailwind is fine, I think it's over features at this point, I love framework to have some sense of "done" or stable. GraphQL is side-effect of spoiled-by-VCs frontend ecosystem. Frontend folks love it doesn't mean it's good for end-to-end system. JWT, I don't have enough experience on it, so I've never been sold.

xtracto 4y ago

I see a lot of the comments in this thread from people that apparently just do not get the problem with JWTs. I was using "presigned access/bearer tokens" way before JWT was a thing. There's multiple safe and easy ways to do authentication/authorization without providing a signed green card to the client which you don't have the ability to cancel at any time. As long as you keep control in a database.

elforce002 4y ago

What's wrong with tailwind? It made css styling accesible and easy at least for me.

justusw 4y ago
I agree, Tailwind seems to be out of scope here for comparison. One is about server architecture, the other one is about how to write CSS. Both have a completely different impact (JWT as a footgun vs. Tailwind improving/worsening developer comfort)

hbrn 4y ago

Microservices and Serverless are another two. IMO the only hyped up piece of tech that was actually good in the last decade is containers (but not the orchestration, just containers).

eagsalazar2 4y ago
Serverless? Huh I can't get onboard with that one.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  Serverless is great for scenarios where you don't want to have to worry about scaling. AWS S3 was probably the first "serverless" technology to really take off. You don't have to worry about how many hosts you need to adequately handle sharing a file with millions of people. You don't need to start up multiple hosts in order to get backups in multiple data centers and then handle synchronization. Nope, just put a file there, and everything else is handled. AWS Lambda and other FaaS providers made it so you don't have to configure scaling hosts to handle sudden large loads. It's also great for things that only need a couple minutes of CPU time per month, like say, periodically processing some data in batches. You don't have to deal with standing up a host that runs a cron job and then paying for CPU time you're not using. Serverless databases mean you don't have to worry about patching the underlying operating system. Of course, serverless has its limitations. FaaS is not suitable for long-running tasks, for example. It also tends to result in vendor lock-in. EDIT: If you're going to fire back with "AlL tHoSe ThInGs ArE sTiLl RuNnInG oN sErVeRs", don't waste your time. It's a tired argument that misses the point. Yes, they run on servers, but you don't have to care about the underlying servers.
  - hbrn 4y ago
    Infinitely scaling webservers is trivial. Serverless solves a problem that is already easy to solve. Infinitely scaling database means inevitable tradeoffs. Serverless doesn't take those tradeoffs away. It doesn't do anything to justify the hype. You get complexity, worse DX, vendor lock-in and often higher price for the sake of not having to do security updates. This is the worst deal in the history of deals, maybe ever.
    - eagsalazar2 4y ago
      Your entire last sentence, except the higher price bit, is just completely utterly false on its face. Serverless is magically simple - and that is DX, magically simple and easy to reason about. Vendor lockin?? Wat? Again utterly wrong and false. The whole point is you are running your code, you define the function bodies, they just get deployed to different serverless hosting services and it is insanely simplifying. Switching from AWS to Netlify to Vercel is not harder than switching under any other approach. About cost, even though that isn't "completely utterly false" it is misleading. If you are a startup and want to move as fast as possible without incurring tons of tech debt, and don't yet have millions of daily users, you should use serverless functions because the total cost will be relatively small (relative to the insanely high cost of good devs that is -- always optimize for DX and velocity until you actually have scale). If you ever get to the point where serverless is costing you real $$, then refactor then - you've incurred almost no tech debt by waiting and being very very fast prior to that may just be the reason you got to that scale at all. Go ahead and build a serverless app utilizing a framework that is well aligned with that approach (may I recommend Remix?) and I bet you'll change your tune. My gut tells me you have no firsthand experience because your points are absolutely off base.

Existenceblinks 4y ago

Kinda agree. Tailwind is fine, I think it's over features at this point, I love framework to have some sense of "done" or stable. GraphQL is side-effect of spoiled-by-VCs frontend ecosystem. Frontend folks love it doesn't mean it's good for end-to-end system. JWT, I don't have enough experience on it, so I've never been sold.