Tailwind, and the death of web craftsmanship
pdx.su
There's a worrying trend in modern web development, where developers are throwing away decades of carefully wrought systems for a bit of perceived convenience. Tools such as Tailwind CSS seem to be spreading like wildfire, with very few people ever willing to acknowledge the regression they bring to our field. And I'm getting tired of it
  • _cnt0@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    I’ve seen people, lead and principal engineers, who refuse to learn modern JS, insisting that since it was bad in 2006 its bad today.

    It’s still bad, though. That’s not the reason why, but it still is. All the frameworks and things like TypeScript try to work around and hide the uglyness and stupidity of JavaScript, but they neither remove nor fix it. The way HTML was initially designed is the exact opposite of how it is used. It was intended to present data in a standardized way and leave the rendering and styling to the client application. People tried to create pixel-perfect designs with it. The entire resulting technology stack was created by idiots for idiots. And JavaScript is consistent in the misguidedness of the endeavor. All the marketing talk about platform independence is bullshit. It is easier to write platform independent GUI applications in C than in HTML + CSS + JavaScript. All the frameworks and languages transpiling to JavaScript trying to belie that just lead to a breeding ground of incompetent GUI developers doing esotheric coding (“doing it the way it is done” while understanding zilch about the fundament). The resulting developers are useless outside of their steaming pile of web GUI shit. The least worse of them are the ones promoting and perpetuating this failed technology stack by adding further layers of abstraction to try and hide that it is build on and from shit, creating even more esoteric developers in the process - by idiots, for idiots. Web GUI developers are paid less than any other branch of developers and it is completely justified.

    • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      It is easier to write platform independent GUI applications in C than in HTML + CSS + JavaScript.

      Um, what? There are very few GUI toolkits targeting both desktops and phones, and none of them are reasonably usable from C.

      • _cnt0@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
        0·
        1 year ago

        You forgot to read the very small fineprint after the rant hyperbole: *) true for desktop applications. You could go with C++ and QT. Though, writing C++ code is never easy/fun (still better than JavaScript, though). Any argument about natively compiled multi platform GUI applications regarding mobile is moot either way for multiple reasons. The angle I’m going to push here is: Everybody and his mother tries to push their custom iOS and Android apps, relegating web sites to the desktop. Any multi platform GUI toolkit with a cross-compilable language will give you twice the functionality in half the development time over HTML+CSS+JavaScript. And don’t get me wrong: I’m not really suggesting that websites have no place. And there are good reasons to want websites. I’m trying to paint a picture what a horrible absolute clusterfuck the web GUI technology stack is.

        • rambaroo@beehaw.org
          1·
          1 year ago

          Any multi platform GUI toolkit with a cross-compilable language will give you twice the functionality in half the development time over HTML+CSS+JavaScript.

          Hundreds of companies have tried to solve this exact problem for years and already did the cost/benefit analysis. It turns out that writing almost all of your code exactly once is cheaper than doing it in the multiple stacks that would be required with whatever your dream architecture is. They are not idiots just because you want them to be.

          You sound like someone with zero practical experience in this area who just wants to rant about code purity. The rest of us are trying to get shit done while you pine for a perfect technology stack that will never exist.