[protonfish]

Why is web development is full to bursting with frameworks? It is not because web applications are inherently flawed. I have been doing web dev for over a dozen years and understand the basics (semantic HTML/CSS, vanilla JavaScript and Ajax, the HTTP protocol and SQL) and know first hand that these are solid, clear and logical tools for building network applications. They don't need Bootstrap, Knockout, Rails or ORMs. In fact, these frameworks are demonstrable bad due to:

1. They remove functionality (developmental power) from their underlying technologies in exchange for making a few types of features slightly easier. 2. Their abstractions are leaky - they cannot be used to their fullest potential without also understanding their underlying technologies. 3. They add overhead to a project both in optimal performance and technical debt.

So why does everyone flock to frameworks? My best guess is because of a failure to have resources available to teach web development beginners the basic technologies and how they work together to create simple, clear, powerful network applications.

[anonyfox]

Perhaps because all these leaky abstractions help me accomplish a new project/idea in a matter of hours/days instead of weeks/months. And most of the time a "just works" is more than enough, high-performance and perfect understanding of every piece in the involved stack is a waste of time when you have dozens of other projects on your todo-list.

When you finally have a single product that is worth optimizing, then you can dive into the deep details. But mostly you have dozens of throw-away products before you get the lucky one.