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i'm not sure how i feel about that.
On one hand, misery loves company.
On the other, it means it's less likely I'm missing The Big Secret that makes it all work happily.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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In all seriousness I am not sure there is a perfect solution for web development.
Every time I hear someone enthuse about a new amazing framework that solves one issue it always brings another issue with it.
That said if I was starting from scratch I would perhaps use React for the front end, microservices on the .NET side(.NET core even using a repository/orchestrator pattern) and as a datastore use something like MongoDB.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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There are two reasons why I still smoke: 
0: web development
1: extrovert in-laws/neighbors/acquaintances who require daily therapy
My workload has shifted over the last several years so that I now spend at least half of my time on web development. The only things that makes it bearable are improved IDEs, jQuery, massive q/a resources, and enough time (around 20 years) doing it to build a decent warchest of JavaScript functions...some of the oldest still work! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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yeah, *sigh* that's like I figured the landscape would be. *headdesk*
that's also how you know you are working with something that is a Big Ball of Mud
Maybe if we took a few of the more active working group committee members hostage they'd step up their game.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I agree with you: web "programming" is a bloody mess; a Frankenstein chimera of mark-ups and toy-language mutated into Godzilla.
Cross platform = Death by a hundred Frameworks.
However, I see some beacons of light, like the work my old friend Andrej (Lidor Systems) is doing with his Angular controls that can be used for stand alone apps, as well as with servers.
cheers, Bill
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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i saw angular could be used to build standalone apps, which i thought could be either really cool or really awful. 
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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honey the codewitch wrote: could be either really cool or really awful.
I haven't tried making a stand-alone web app: what do you think the down-sides could be ... other than the complexity of programming to Angular ?
Andrej keeps encouraging me to "get into" Angular, and I have great respect for him: I still use his fantastic WinForm controls.
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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well, just off the top of my head, my designer tools for winforms are better than the designer tools for angular, regardless of how good they are. it's still web dev.
maybe i'm setting the bar too high.
but it's 2019.
We got the cyperpunk dystopia the scifi writers promised us, we're getting to the self writing code, but after all that even now CSS/HTML/JS is still like the Department of Motor Vehicles of coding - it stinks like old office buildings do and everything takes longer than it should, and nobody is in a position to *actually* help you with anything important.
I would never give up my desktop tools and frameworks to use the clusterfark of offerings for web stuff, if given a choice.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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honey the codewitch wrote: my designer tools for winforms are better than the designer tools for angular
We seem to be on the same wavelength here  But, do check out the Lidor Controls; I'd include a link, but that might be misconstrued as "promotional." honey the codewitch wrote: We got the cyperpunk dystopia the scifi writers promised us, we're getting to the self writing code, but after all that even now CSS/HTML/JS is still like the Department of Motor Vehicles of coding - it stinks like old office buildings do and everything takes longer than it should, and nobody is in a position to *actually* help you with anything important.
Up-voting for that eloquent take-down
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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BillWoodruff wrote: do check out the Lidor Controls
Will do. I've been thinking of fiddling with angular anyway.
BillWoodruff wrote: Up-voting for that eloquent take-down
I never waste an opportunity to criticize two things I find atrocious by comparing them to one another. 
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Angular lost me years ago when they promised a new major version every 6 months.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
- Hanlon's Razor
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Nathan Minier wrote: Angular lost me years ago
I doubt Angular has recovered from the loss 
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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Wow. Have another, guv'na!
So you're the guy that likes the idea of new major versions of libraries every 6 months? Never would have guessed that.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
- Hanlon's Razor
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I haven't tried it, but Blazor looks cool.
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Quote:
is there some magic to web development that makes it not suck?
Nup
All web dev sucks.
Always has and probably always will do.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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They don't pay you because it is fun or easy...
They pay you because that is the only way they can get you to do it.
I hate web development. That's why I don't do it.
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I don't get paid for web dev. I only do it to make demos for libs i write. but i still hate it.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Stick to Basics - no (so called) helper frameworks
HTML5/CSS3/javaScript/php - and then roll your own.
Naturally, like any programming, there's an induction period where you get used to the idea of how to do things and the comparative uniqueness of the isolation of the client from the server and statelessness. But it all becomes familiar. And you maintain control.
For myself - I don't give a damn about the conventional wisdom of the layout. I want all the components on the page to work exactly as I wish them to (along with the server). Design - well, they could hire a web designer. I'll keep it clean and, in particular, a very small set of interfaces for my users (familiarity breeds contentment). I go for eye-friendly, and, since these are for office workers to stare at all day, kind to the eyes based on colors/contrasts/font-sizes.
If an extension is added (really, 'when' an extension is added) is must not interfere with existing code and design. They must embrace or ignore one another - no half-assed measures or you'll pay down the line. Also, never use the latest-and-greatest extension to (HTML/CSS) as you then have browser incompatibility(s) or even worse, you handle it, fork you design, crash, and burn.
Remember - you are working concurrently with three-to-five languages per page (if you count SQL). It's not like the happy place in your C++ environment - everything made to a single monolithic paradigm. And you need to redesign there, too.
Thereby set up a stable world and the problems all but disappear.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: I want all the components on the page to work exactly as I wish them to
That's the problem, especially with CSS.
And I roll my own stuff a lot of times, except these days I do use jquery precisely because it eliminates some of the inconsistencies of "DHTML", especially taking multiple browsers into account.
Less stress. Still, it's mostly CSS that sticks in my craw. It's just so freakin arcane.
Even I get the concepts enough that I could roll my own basic CSS engine, things like lack of a hard "height" feature, clearfix problems, and just the layout quirks - it's a damned mess. I know one person that can navigate that mud and make it seem easy, and if I wasn't a better person I'd hate them for it 
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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honey the codewitch wrote: I know one person that can navigate that mud and make it seem easy,
So - you have supplied apriori proof that it can be done if you know what you're doing - really like any other programming languages.
Now - there's no need for you to specialize for a now-and-then pain.
I came to my current job for my C++ - but am now 'the' web programmer. What I have found, as a self criticism, is that I usually know how to get the page to appear as I wish - but don't want to make the effort.
Between sending you my first mail in this series and your reply I worked on a modification. It didn't work out and I commented it out, for now. I do know the solution (in programming, I guess it's always properly written as "a solution", not "the solution") but I have neither the urge nor the time, right now, to go there. Really easy: make a two-column table into three so I can right-justify a like (whose class makes it look like a button) on the far right of a <th> element and combine all the lower rows to mimic the original two-column behavior with a column span, along with using <td>, instead, and gain back some control. Or whatever floats by when I open the page again. All of the above formatting is from AJAX (php). Right now, I just don't feel like it.
So, instead of putting in the effort it got " // ".
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Tables are easy and honestly if I didn't sort of hate myself for relying on them I'd just stick with them.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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honey the codewitch wrote: if I didn't sort of hate myself for relying on them I'd just stick with them.
I never understood this anti-table nonesense.
They work and make many things very much easier (and readable ! ! ! !).
Someone got a burr up their ass and decided to denigrate them. Why should I care what they think? And by proxy, why should you care? Wait for them to offer to do your work for you.
(by the way - if life were all tables we'd not have this thread).
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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One of the rationales is it combines layout and structure, whereas if you avoid them in favor of CSS tables and such you can better "skin" your site using CSS.
However, no matter what you do in the real world with HTML and CSS there's going to be intermingling of structure and layout.
Another rationale, and this one is compelling: lack of fluidity in layout which means entirely separate content for mobile, which means more work.
So I don't know. I'm ambivalent about tables due to the second thing.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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honey the codewitch wrote: entirely separate content for mobile,
Mobile? We don't do no stinkin' mobile!
I create software for grownups earning their living. And a fraternal district full of users on an informational site. So far, no complaints from a single phone-addicted user although Google analytics puts them at ca. 40% share.
You have made my LG flip-phone weep.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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