[onion2k]

I would've chalked it up to "there are layers upon layers of magical things I don't understand, I guess I only need to interact with them and slap them together."

That's fine though.

If someone learns C++ today without knowing any ASM very few people would tell them they're "doing it wrong". If someone learns Unreal Blueprints without learning C++ senior game developers still see them as productive game developers. If someone writes a great GLSL shader on shadertoy without knowing how to use WebGL that's OK too. You don't have to understand all the layers in order to use them and make good stuff.

The web is no different. I see no reason why people can't just concentrate on learning the top level abstraction to make things until they encounter a problem that they need to know more about the lower levels to solve. They might never have that problem.

All of this "You have to learn the underlying tech in order to use the framework on top of it" just sounds like gatekeeping to me.

[wormik]

This approach leads us exactly where we are - having 100x more HW resources, yet page load times still suck ;) And simple request to webdev - would you please make your js app build any faster then 5min always yields the same, confused look - like, where in the mess of 100+ libs should I start?

[onion2k]

This approach leads us exactly where we are - having 100x more HW resources, yet page load times still suck ;)

Load times have remained pretty much flat for the past decade despite page weight and page complexity going up. I think the fact they haven't got worse is a good thing.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> "You have to learn the underlying tech in order to use the framework on top of it" just sounds like gatekeeping to me.

Possibly. But if you want to master your craft, you need to learn the “underlying tech.” That’s why we have computer science degrees, after all. Not all programmers have computer science degrees and in many cases, it shows. Someone who understands fundamentals is often more effective at debugging and problem solving when the s* hits the fan.

If you just want to bootcamp it without a deep-dive, that’s fine and I agree with you.

[onion2k]

Not all programmers have computer science degrees and in many cases, it shows.

Some programmers do have computer science degrees, and in many cases it doesn't show. In my experience whether or not someone has a computer science degree is a very poor indicator of how good a developer they are.

[ghaff]

It depends what your objective is. This thread started around the question of how accessible putting up a website is to the average person these days. And there's no reason to become a "full-stack" developer in order to do that--unless you want to for other reasons.

And it's pretty easy to host some basic HTML/CSS and even easier to just go directly with a blogging platform or something like Square Space.

[Multicomp]

>All of this "You have to learn the underlying tech in order to use the framework on top of it" just sounds like gatekeeping to me.

I might be putting words in GPs mouth, but I read the comments as 'making a swf and embedding it in a HTML file used to be good enough. Now everything is way more complicated'.

I tend to agree with GP. Flash and it's desktop counterparts Delphi etc certainly had their warts but they were much more intuitive on the wetware. Such that accountants and non professional / semipro users could use them.

We made a mistake by throwing them out, when we IMHO should have corrected them or replaced them with less warty programs that we're still using the same paradigm to be easy and intuitive to create.