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I think one thing especially for people coming to web development from other angles in programming is getting used to the fact that you have to know so many tec

by wheels 18y ago

I think one thing especially for people coming to web development from other angles in programming is getting used to the fact that you have to know so many technologies / languages to get the job done. In the early days of web apps, you could mostly get by with Perl, SQL, HTML and a little bit of Javascript for mouseovers and whatnot. Framework? CGI.pm, baby. Now you generally need HTML, CSS, Javascript, a Javascript framework, a backend language of choice, a framework of choice in that language, a high-performance backend language of choice for the critical bits, and SQL. I did web apps from 1997 to 2001 and then picked back up in early 2008. It was pretty dizzying at first just knowing where to start. In the systems / multimedia world where I lived in the 7 years between it was C or C++ and a framework. So what's the connection to the story? I think it's in the web world, perhaps as a result of its relative infancy, we apparently have to get used to the fact that the right solution to a problem is often using mixed-mode programming where individual tools are selected for individual tasks -- that development abilities in the web world is as much a question of breadth as depth. We shouldn't be so disenfranchised that our tools aren't general purpose.

jballanc 18y ago
I'd take this one step further to point out that web programming is a different beast from desktop programing in that you are attempting to tie a fault-tolerant, low-bandwidth channel (the internet) to a strict, high-bandwidth channel (the CPU/RAM). Add to that impedance mismatches from latency, and I think anyone who expects to have a full stack written using only one language is kidding themselves!
FooBarWidget 18y ago
Disagree. You don't need frameworks. You can still use CGI.pm if you want to. But doing so will make your web app look and behave like a 1998 dinosaur, and using a framework is just so much easier, more comfortable and less error-prone. While frameworks add complexity as far as the computer is concerned, they remove complexity as far as the human developer is concerned. I can write a web app in Ruby on Rails much faster than I could ever have with mod_perl, and the result is better-looking and easier to maintain.

by wheels 18y ago

jballanc 18y ago

I'd take this one step further to point out that web programming is a different beast from desktop programing in that you are attempting to tie a fault-tolerant, low-bandwidth channel (the internet) to a strict, high-bandwidth channel (the CPU/RAM). Add to that impedance mismatches from latency, and I think anyone who expects to have a full stack written using only one language is kidding themselves!

FooBarWidget 18y ago

Disagree. You don't need frameworks. You can still use CGI.pm if you want to. But doing so will make your web app look and behave like a 1998 dinosaur, and using a framework is just so much easier, more comfortable and less error-prone. While frameworks add complexity as far as the computer is concerned, they remove complexity as far as the human developer is concerned. I can write a web app in Ruby on Rails much faster than I could ever have with mod_perl, and the result is better-looking and easier to maintain.