3 ms·

The reality is a bit more complex than this, although it is certainly the case that the Front End world has a lot of hype and, in my impression, some snobbery

The reality is a bit more complex than this, although it is certainly the case that the Front End world has a lot of hype and, in my impression, some snobbery derived from the second-wave web-design world when the broader design community started taking an interest in the web (which was net a good thing.) The main reason the JavaScript era happened is because HTML ceased to move forward as a hypermedia. This pushed people into more and more scripting to achieve user experiences, which eventually required the use of frameworks to manage the complexity. If HTML had continued to increase in its hypermedia expressiveness, a lot of pain and anger could have been avoided. (full disclosure, I have a dog in this fight: https://htmx.org https://htmx.org) The fact HTML stalled as a hypermedia was then coupled with the fact that first-wave web thought leaders got interested in "web services" (aka APIs) and ended up going down the JSON-APIs-are-RESTful[1] rabbit hole meant that hypermedia, the only real alternative to JavaScript-maximalism for more elaborate user experiences, floundered as a concept. Meanwhile, say what one will, but the JavaScript-maximalist community was making progress and talking about it loudly. [1]- https://htmx.org/essays/how-did-rest-come-to-mean-the-opposite-of-rest/ https://htmx.org/essays/how-did-rest-come-to-mean-the-opposi...

dragonwriter 4y ago
> The main reason the JavaScript era happened is because HTML ceased to move forward as a hypermedia I think you have cause and effect reversed; Java, JS, Flash, and other non-HTML technologies appeared on the web very early on, and are the reason the evolution of HTML as hypermedia stalled; when it resumed, JS was so well established as a complement that even what evolution of HTML as hypermedia occurred was generally JS dependent.
- recursivedoubts 4y ago
  I don't really disagree with you regarding the cause of the HTML stall as hypermedia, although I still claim that it was the stall that directly pushed people into JavaScript maximalism. The JavaScript maximalist era didn't really come into existence until post 2010 with the release of Angular, which was two years after the release of HTML5. HTML5 included canvas as a reaction to flash (and the long-since-effectively-dead java applets.) So HTML was making progress, but that progress was mainly in terms of front-end, thick-client style features, driven by, yes, the JavaScript (and flash) technologies. But what it wasn't doing was making progress as a hypermedia (e.g. adding new hypermedia controls or, as with htmx, making all elements hypermedia controls.) As to the cause of this lack of progress as a hypermedia, I agree with you that it was due, at least in part, to the other front-end technologies, as well as a lack of appreciation for the hypermedia model (which is why I mention the thought leaders going down the webservices/JSON API rabbit hole.)

dragonwriter 4y ago

> The main reason the JavaScript era happened is because HTML ceased to move forward as a hypermedia I think you have cause and effect reversed; Java, JS, Flash, and other non-HTML technologies appeared on the web very early on, and are the reason the evolution of HTML as hypermedia stalled; when it resumed, JS was so well established as a complement that even what evolution of HTML as hypermedia occurred was generally JS dependent.

recursivedoubts 4y ago
I don't really disagree with you regarding the cause of the HTML stall as hypermedia, although I still claim that it was the stall that directly pushed people into JavaScript maximalism. The JavaScript maximalist era didn't really come into existence until post 2010 with the release of Angular, which was two years after the release of HTML5. HTML5 included canvas as a reaction to flash (and the long-since-effectively-dead java applets.) So HTML was making progress, but that progress was mainly in terms of front-end, thick-client style features, driven by, yes, the JavaScript (and flash) technologies. But what it wasn't doing was making progress as a hypermedia (e.g. adding new hypermedia controls or, as with htmx, making all elements hypermedia controls.) As to the cause of this lack of progress as a hypermedia, I agree with you that it was due, at least in part, to the other front-end technologies, as well as a lack of appreciation for the hypermedia model (which is why I mention the thought leaders going down the webservices/JSON API rabbit hole.)