[vagrantJin]

Im 29, never used myspace, really had access to the internet in 2011 & Im still suspect of how much utter crap web dev is deteriorating into.

> completely disregarding the fact that UI and state management frameworks like React have made developing the sort of advanced applications we demand exceptionally easy.

Till this day, no one has given me a straight answer on why they choose react beyond the dubious claims of performance++. Or even why build a web app to begin with. Nor have the users been asked if they want native-like apps on the browser.

I complain but I use react everyday on a web app Im sure no one cares if it loads 400ms faster than a server rendered jinja template.

Now we have massive overhead, npm libraries for everything and only god knows whats going on in the node modules folder, keeping up with the joneses by using Typescript - why use typescript when Java or C# do static typing so well? I can't ask silly plebian questions like that. we are modern is translated to yarn install everything and use VScode and dont forget the babel plugins. Can you imagine being looked down on for preferring plain javascript, the thing that Typescript compiles to, as being archaic?

I'm no old timer but that's some crazy shit.

[vinceguidry]

I'm 37, it really wasn't ever any better. I just don't get the sense of nostalgia people have for the "old web." When I think about it, I remember all the ugly toxicity it all was absolutely plagued with. Software bugs were just as bad if not worse, and platforms were just absolutely silly with nonsense you had to put up with. Just to talk shit to someone who probably didn't deserve it because they did to you all because there wasn't much better to do.

There's very little about my past I would go back to.

[ari__]

> Till this day, no one has given me a straight answer on why they choose react beyond the dubious claims of performance++. Or even why build a web app to begin with. Nor have the users been asked if they want native-like apps on the browser.

The main reason is cross platform compatibility for things that don't need to make system calls. Ultimately I would prefer to distribute statically linked Go binaries that are command line applications, but if I was asked all "UI" would be a REST API with a manual. The market finds web applications are successful and lower the barrier of entry, and so they're made.

> I complain but I use react everyday on a web app Im sure no one cares if it loads 400ms faster than a server rendered jinja template.

With NextJS and server side rendering + static optimization I find that time to first (contentful) paint is the same or faster than Jinja without me having to configure a thing.

> Now we have massive overhead, npm libraries for everything and only god knows whats going on in the node modules folder

npm/yarn provides a pretty good developer experience but the way it accomplishes that is a touch horrifying, I agree. Babel and Webpack I find bring it most of the bloat, which is probably a good thing as you're not shipping those dependencies in production bundles. It definitely chews up storage space on the local machine though.

> keeping up with the joneses by using Typescript - why use typescript when Java or C# do static typing so well? I can't ask silly plebian questions like that.

Just to get out in front of it - I do not like Typescript. I find Typescript to be a waste of time. JS's type system is broken as hell, but in just the right way for web development. It makes it flexible and easy to write. With Typescript I feel like I spend most of my time making the compiler happy instead of generating any value for the business or myself.