I hesitate to say this, but I believe at the time Web developers just weren't really developers. Attempts to bring grown-up development approaches to the Web ha

I hesitate to say this, but I believe at the time Web developers just weren't really developers. Attempts to bring grown-up development approaches to the Web had to fail because they pushed beyond the capabilities of most. Ironically, the longer-term result was JavaScript of great complexity, so that much of computer science has been reinvented -- but in JavaScript, and Web development has become astoundingly complicated.