4 ms·

The defects you point to are real, but it sounds like you're speaking to us from 2008. Have you spent any time looking at Clojurescript and David Nolen's work;

The defects you point to are real, but it sounds like you're speaking to us from 2008. Have you spent any time looking at Clojurescript and David Nolen's work; React; Chrome dev tools; LightTable's integration with the browser; Atom; etc? Smart people are doing smart stuff. One other point I wanted to mention: I've worked with other UI frameworks for developing what you call "serious" applications, such as MFC, Windows Presentation Framework, QT, and others. The web may suck, but all those options completely, also, sucked. Nobody knows how to build UIs yet.

sandover 13y ago
slaps own hand for feeding the troll
Silhouette 13y ago
The defects you point to are real, but it sounds like you're speaking to us from 2008. Not at all, I just don't accept the premise that newer means better. There is more hype in the (front end) Web development industry right now than I have ever seen in any part of the software development world in several decades of working in the industry, and this is rarely a good sign. To be specific, I think one of the things that has made the Web successful as a medium for both sites and more recently apps is its relative simplicity. This has allowed for a good degree of ubiquity and portability even when standardisation wasn't perfect. It also, importantly, made the field accessible to many new people. Even relatively non-technical folk could put together a simple web site by reading a few tutorials, and a beginner to "serious" web design/development could get up to speed within a reasonable period. As we try to do more demanding things with the Web, some increase in complexity is probably inevitable, but that complexity has a cost. The limitations of the underlying foundations become more and more of a drag on progress for the whole industry the further we move in that direction. It will become harder and harder to change course the more people and organisations have committed to the current path. The signs are already there that even the big names can't get this right today -- try using almost any of Google's web apps on an iDevice at the moment, for example -- and it's great that there is so much enthusiasm for fixing the things that don't work well as they are. I just wish there was more interest in whether we've got the right answers to the most basic questions before we get too bogged down in relatively minor details.

sandover 13y ago

slaps own hand for feeding the troll

Silhouette 13y ago

The defects you point to are real, but it sounds like you're speaking to us from 2008. Not at all, I just don't accept the premise that newer means better. There is more hype in the (front end) Web development industry right now than I have ever seen in any part of the software development world in several decades of working in the industry, and this is rarely a good sign. To be specific, I think one of the things that has made the Web successful as a medium for both sites and more recently apps is its relative simplicity. This has allowed for a good degree of ubiquity and portability even when standardisation wasn't perfect. It also, importantly, made the field accessible to many new people. Even relatively non-technical folk could put together a simple web site by reading a few tutorials, and a beginner to "serious" web design/development could get up to speed within a reasonable period. As we try to do more demanding things with the Web, some increase in complexity is probably inevitable, but that complexity has a cost. The limitations of the underlying foundations become more and more of a drag on progress for the whole industry the further we move in that direction. It will become harder and harder to change course the more people and organisations have committed to the current path. The signs are already there that even the big names can't get this right today -- try using almost any of Google's web apps on an iDevice at the moment, for example -- and it's great that there is so much enthusiasm for fixing the things that don't work well as they are. I just wish there was more interest in whether we've got the right answers to the most basic questions before we get too bogged down in relatively minor details.