[echelon]

These aren't just web pages. They're full applications with robust, rich state.

Web apps can reach the complexity of a desktop app with a GUI, a game, etc.

I say this as a mostly backend / systems engineer: there is an incredible wealth of complexity in the frontend. In user interaction, making and transforming API calls, and in UI/UX design.

[bobthepanda]

so long as browsers don't have a great way to be stateful, and tie that state to markup, then there will be a couple of major frameworks trying to square that circle.

the moment you have to keep track of any type of state, managing dozens of UI elements quickly becomes extremely tedious.