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0 pointstikiman1636y ago0 comments

I'm not sure if I fully agree with your point about developers or managers not wanting to suggest they aren't needed. You're argument relies on the idea that most business needs could be sufficiently met by static html doesn't really fit how businesses works. If a business in an industry has additional functionality on their page that gives them an edge beyond just text on a page, then it is needed. Additionally, when extra functionality is needed the whole industry is going to compete on that. Most businesses don't have enough extra funds to support unnecessary or non-competitive functionality development, so while there might be something better they could be doing with their money, it's almost never the case that what's being developed is so over complicated or over architected that it would be a better financial move to build a static page or site than what they're doing because losing that competitive edge often results in the company, division or product line failing to get enough sales to continue.

You do make something of a good point about nothing preventing web development becoming over complicated, except you seem to have forgotten how much that costs. Unless there is a perceived marketable difference, people will rarely push for it to be developed at all, and given the size of the average development team's backlog that pressure to develop also has to outweigh everything in the backlog as well.

The honest truth is that web development has become so complicated because that's the equilibrium point of the supply of labor to the demand for advanced features. Developing the same features from scratch using static web development methods takes exponentially longer as a function of feature complexity, and the ability to use frameworks and other more complicated tools reduces that down to being merely linear.

Web development isn't complicated because nothing is stopping it from being complicated, it's complicated because consumers want features that they assume should be simple, but are in fact very complicated.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

rossdavidh6y ago· 3 in thread

While this is occasionally true, I believe it is most of the time not true. Many, many features (e.g. endless scrolling) get pushed out to consumers who don't want it. By and large, consumers of websites want text and images. The push to put embedded video, lots of ajaxy updating of content, etc. has happened on countless newspaper, magazine, and other websites where all the consumer wants is the words and the images. Many features, like allowing comments, are actively disliked by the vast majority of users. There are, certainly, a few corners of the web that need more than static html, but >90% of the websites in existence that are _not_ static html, should be, and the consumers would like them better that way.

dynamite-ready6y ago

I don't believe consumers secretly yearn for largely text based pages, and that's part of the reason why web development has become so complicated. The fact is, 'you' may believe that a simple HTML page will suit > '90%' of consumers, but until you can prove that objectively, then you'll find that there's a whole industry dedicated to determining what really does suit consumers better.

And it's a multi billion dollar market now.

This is merely my opinion, so take it for what it's worth, but I think it's a reasonable answer to the question in the thread title. Also, why is there so much confusion over tools? Probably because there is so much confusion about what people do and do not like in a webpage / web application.

There's more art to software development than many practitioners would like to admit.

RockIslandLine6y ago

"I don't believe consumers secretly yearn for largely text based pages"

I sure as hell do.

Joe Sixpack doesn't give a fuck either way.

serchavalos6y ago

I'm sure there is some research that validates that endless scrolling increases user engagement. High user engagement leads to high user exposition, something that marketers are attracted to and spend lots of money to put their ads, and there you go, more profit due to this feature

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