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by ryanmarsh 3224 days ago
I wish this "the web is over complicated" meme would die. The web at one point was only for hypertext. It is still fine for hypertext but it is now also an application platform and the browser a runtime and app container.

Your solution to the JS ecosystem is to make news websites less interactive. I see why you long for simpler times but I don't see how that fixes things.

For those of us who are building applications we need the complexity. It solves problems that come from the fact that the web has evolved from a hypertext system to an application platform.
2 comments
bigtunacan 3224 days ago
The issue is not that "the web is over complicated". The bigger issue is that people are allowing themselves to be brainwashed into thinking that everything is a "web application". Some sites offer benefits as web applications; GMail and Pivotal Tracker come to mind right away as good examples. Other websites like CNN should not be applications and would do end users a disservice by over-complicating things by making them JavaScript based.

One of the trends I'm seeing is that a lot of developers once they have built one web site as a SPA they seem to start thinking everything should be built this way. More consideration should be given to deciding which is appropriate.

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free_everybody 3224 days ago
I think this sums up the most poignant complaint against the javascript/node trend. It's not that we don't need SPA's. SPA's are awesome. But sites like Reddit and Hacker News prove that they don't need to be implemented everywhere.
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enraged_camel 3224 days ago
>>For those of us who are building applications we need the complexity

I'm not saying don't build applications. I'm saying web applications can be server-only and should not spill over into the client.

Again there are exceptions - things like control panels or consoles do benefit from being SPAs. But in a lot of cases there is also nothing wrong or insufficient or unsatisfactory (from a UX perspective) about clicking a link and having the server send you pre-rendered HTML. JavaScript can still be used as icing on the cake to enhance those interactions, such as by displaying a spinner on the submit button and disabling it once the user clicks it.

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