Is All of Webdev Just A Pile of Hacks?
tl; dr : This post on hackernews.
I had written a (not so structured) blogpost on how web dev is insanely different from app dev, comparing UI design, backend code, and flow of the app/webapp. And how webdev is just hacky.
I've seen so many profiles on LinkedIn/personal websites where people proudly designate themselves as ardent lovers of JS. No offence, but huh, lol. You can be really good at JS, but it's just very hard to fall in love with, unlike languages like Java and Python.
Now I don't entirely dislike JS - I understand why it is the way it is, and the history of the Internet and yada yada. But all frameworks, all libraries built using JS felt like attempts at revival of something that should have long died. Every new framework gives JS lovers (honestly no offence) a little bit of hope and adds a year or two to its survival. JS is a hack on top of a series of hacks! They have fake classes and now pretend inheritance in React (I used refactored a lot of code to extend Component everywhere). And HTML is even worse. Why can't it just be as simple as XML tags in Android.
Why not redesign it all? Forget JS and HTML. I know, I know there are trillions of website and you just can't replace it all in a day. But with the internet now at a relatively stable state, knowing where the future is heading (unlike when it first started where no one knew this is how much it'd scale), the IEFT or maybe Google (okay, sorry :| ) could come up with a replacement, rebuild tools to make websites ground-up in a structured manner that makes sense - much like app dev. Google did try AngularJS - but honestly, AngularJS still sucks. React is nice, but meh, it's still just another very nice hack to keep JS alive. Okay. Fine, JS lovers. Maybe all of this sounds extremely silly.
Here's why I wrote this blogpost. This post on HackerNews! I'm extremely happy there are sane developers who don't blindly love JS - they know it sucks, and yet they choose to love it. :')
I had written a (not so structured) blogpost on how web dev is insanely different from app dev, comparing UI design, backend code, and flow of the app/webapp. And how webdev is just hacky.
I've seen so many profiles on LinkedIn/personal websites where people proudly designate themselves as ardent lovers of JS. No offence, but huh, lol. You can be really good at JS, but it's just very hard to fall in love with, unlike languages like Java and Python.
Now I don't entirely dislike JS - I understand why it is the way it is, and the history of the Internet and yada yada. But all frameworks, all libraries built using JS felt like attempts at revival of something that should have long died. Every new framework gives JS lovers (honestly no offence) a little bit of hope and adds a year or two to its survival. JS is a hack on top of a series of hacks! They have fake classes and now pretend inheritance in React (I used refactored a lot of code to extend Component everywhere). And HTML is even worse. Why can't it just be as simple as XML tags in Android.
Why not redesign it all? Forget JS and HTML. I know, I know there are trillions of website and you just can't replace it all in a day. But with the internet now at a relatively stable state, knowing where the future is heading (unlike when it first started where no one knew this is how much it'd scale), the IEFT or maybe Google (okay, sorry :| ) could come up with a replacement, rebuild tools to make websites ground-up in a structured manner that makes sense - much like app dev. Google did try AngularJS - but honestly, AngularJS still sucks. React is nice, but meh, it's still just another very nice hack to keep JS alive. Okay. Fine, JS lovers. Maybe all of this sounds extremely silly.
Here's why I wrote this blogpost. This post on HackerNews! I'm extremely happy there are sane developers who don't blindly love JS - they know it sucks, and yet they choose to love it. :')
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