HTML Web App Development Still Has a Ways To Go

GMGruman writes "Neil McAllister was helping out a friend whose web developer disappeared. Neil's journey into his friend's website ended up being an archaeological dig through unstable remains, as layers of code in different languages easily broke when touched. Neil realized in that experience that the ever-growing jumble of standards, frameworks, and tools makes web application development harder than it needs to be. Although the Web is all about open standards where anyone can create variations for their specific needs and wants, Neil's experience reminded him that a tightly controlled ecosystem backed by a major vendor does make it easier to define best practices, set development targets, and deliver results with a minimum of chaos. There's something to be said for that."

Comments

Re:"too many frameworks"

[DrgnDancer]

It is when the choice is put into the hands of monkeys with darts. That's the problem he's pointing out. Most small companies don't hire seasoned developers unless they specialize in software development. They get whoever they can for cheap, or, at best, they get what their limited experience tells them is the best person. They hire:

1) Kids fresh out of college who know theory but have worked with very little in practice.

2) People with no actual formal computer training who simply "know about computers" and and will work for what a real developer (or even a kid fresh out of college) would consider shit. But which beats what the guy was making selling tires.

3) People with experience, but in the wrong things: I'm a very senior sys admin type. My resume looks very fancy and technical. I'm sure I could convince some mom and pop to hire me as a web dev, especially if I was willing to take a pay cut (say I lost my job and needed something now). Could I build a web site? Sure. Could I make it functional? Absolutely. Would you want to come behind me and maintain it? I'd like to think so, but reality is I'm not an experienced web developer. I'm likely to make bad choices, especially in the beginning. Especially if mom and pop are breathing down my neck because they hired me to make them a web site dammit. It's been a week, where is the damn thing already?

I'm not saying you're wrong of course. More choices is a good thing in theory. For the expert, it's nearly always a good thing. This doesn't change the reality of the situation though... most people aren't experts. Even the ones working in the field. Sit an inexperienced kid, an enthusiastic amateur, or a sys admin who needed a job in front of the current embarrassment of choices, and we're all likely to make bad choices. Probably for the best of reasons. Then we're going to go get new jobs, and the next kid/amateur/sys admin is going to make new bad choices and pile them on top of the old bad choices with a little duct tape and some Gorilla Glue.

It's a thorny problem. Fewer choices is bad, but the current situation isn't great either. Luckily I'm a sys admin, so you developer guys figure it out :-P