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+---
+title: State of Web Technologies and Web development in year 2022
+permalink: /state-of-web-technologies-and-web-development-in-year-2022.html
+date: 2022-10-06T12:00:00+02:00
+layout: post
+type: post
+draft: false
+---
+
+## Initial thoughts
+
+*This post is a critique on the current state of web development. It is an
+opinionated post! I will learn more about this in the future, and probably
+slightly change my mind about some of the things I criticize.*
+
+I have started working on a hobby project about two weeks ago, and I wanted to
+use that situation as a learning one. Trying new things, new technologies, new
+tools. I always considered myself to be an adventurous person when it comes to
+technology. I never shy away from trying new languages, new operating systems
+etc. Likewise, I find the whole experience satisfying, and it tickles that part
+of my brain that finds discovery the highest of the mountains to climb.
+
+What I always wanted to make was a coding game, that you would play in a browser
+(just to eliminate building binaries for each operating system) where you would
+level up your character and go into these scriptable battles. You know, RPG
+elements.
+
+So, the natural way to go would be some sort of SPA (single page application)
+with basic routing and some state management. Nothing crazy.
+
+> **Before we move on**, I have to be transparent. Take my views on this with
+> a grain of salt. I have only scratched the surface with these technologies,
+> and my knowledge is full of gaps. This is my experience using some of these
+> products for the first time or in a limited capacity.
+
+Having this out of the way, I got myself a fresh pot of coffee and down the
+rabbit hole I went.
+
+## Giving React JS a spin
+
+I first tried [React JS](https://reactjs.org/). I kind of like it. Furthermore,
+I have worked with libraries like this in the past and also wrote a couple of
+them (nothing compared to that level), but I had the basic understanding of what
+was going on. I rolled up a project quickly and had basic things done in a
+matter of two hours, which was impressive.
+
+I prefer using [Tailwind CSS](https://tailwindcss.com/) for my styling
+pleasures, and integrating that was also a painless experience. It was actually
+nice to see that some things got better with time. In about 2 minutes I got
+Tailwind working, and I was able to use classes at my disposal. All that
+`postcss` stuff was taken care of by adding a couple of things in config files
+(all described really well in their documentation).
+
+It is not that different from Vue which I have had more encounters with in the
+past People will probably call me a lunatic for saying this. But you know, it is
+the truth. Same same, but different. I still believe that using libraries like
+this is beneficial. I am not a JavaScript purist. They all have their quirks,
+but at the end of the day, I truly believe it’s worth it.
+
+## Bundlers and Transpilers
+
+I still reject calling [Typescript](https://www.typescriptlang.org/) to
+[JavaScript](https://www.javascript.com/) conversion a "compilation process".  I
+call them [transpilers](https://devopedia.org/transpiler), and I don’t care! 😈
+
+The first one that I ever used was [webpack](https://webpack.js.org/), and it
+was an absolute horrific experience. Saying this, it is an absolutely fantastic
+tool. I felt more like a config editor than actually a programmer.  To be fair,
+I am a huge fan of [make](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/), and you can do as
+you wish with this information. I like my build systems simple.
+
+Also, isn’t it interesting that we need something like
+[Babel](https://babeljs.io/) to make JavaScript code work in a browser that has
+only one client side scripting available, which is by no accident also
+JavaScript. Why? I know why it’s needed, but seriously, why.
+
+I haven’t used Babel for years now. Or if I did, it was packaged together by
+some other bundler thingy. Which does not make things better, but at least I
+didn’t need to worry about it.
+
+I really don’t like complicated build systems. I really don’t like abstracting
+code and making things appear magical. The older I get, the more I appreciate
+clear and clean, expressive code. No one-liners, if possible.
+
+But I have to give props to [Vite](https://vitejs.dev/)! This was one of the
+best developer experiences I have ever had. Granted, it still has magical
+properties. And yes, it still is a bundler and abstracts things to the nth
+degree. But at least it didn’t force me to configure 700 lines of JSON. And I
+know that this makes me a hypocrite. You can’t have it all. Nonetheless, my
+reasoning here is, if using bundlers is inevitable, then at least they should
+provide an excellent developer experience.
+
+I also noticed that now the catch-all phrase is “blazingly fast” and “lightning
+fast” and “next generation” and stuff like that. I mean, yeah, tools should get
+faster with time. But saying that starting a project now takes 2 seconds instead
+of 20 seconds is something that is a break it or make it kind of a deal is
+ridiculous. I don’t mind waiting a couple of seconds every couple of days. I
+also don’t create 700 projects every day, and also who does? This argument has
+no bite. All I want is a decent reload time (~100ms is more than good enough for
+me) and that is it.
+
+You don’t need to sell me benefits if I only get them when I start a fresh
+project, and then try to convince me that this is somehow changing the fate of
+the universe. First of all, it is not. And second, if this is your only argument
+for your tool, I would advise you to maybe re-focus your efforts to something
+else. Vite says that startup times are really fast. And if that would be the
+only thing differentiating it from other tools, I would ignore it. But it has
+some really compelling features like [Hot Module
+Replacement](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/reactjs-hot-module-replacement/) that
+really works well. It was a joy to use.
+
+So, I will be definitely using Vite in the future.
+
+## Jam Stack, Mach Stack no snack
+
+Let's get a couple of the acronyms out of the way, so we all know what we are
+talking about:
+
+- Jam Stack - JavaScript, API and Markup
+- Mach Stack - Microservices, API-first, Cloud-Native SaaS, Headless
+
+It is so hard to follow all these new trendy things happening around you, that
+it makes you have a massive **FOMO** all the time. But on the other hand, you
+also don’t want to be that old fart that doesn’t move with the times and still
+writes his trusty jQuery code while listening to Blink 182 All the small things
+on full blast. It’s a good song, don’t get me wrong, but there are other songs
+out there.
+
+I have to admit. [Vercel](https://vercel.com/) is really cool! Love the
+simplicity of the service. You could compare it to
+[Netlify](https://www.netlify.com/).  I haven’t tried Netlify extensively, but
+from a couple of experimental deployments I still prefer Vercel. It is much more
+streamlined, but maybe this is bias in me. I really like Vercel’s Analytics,
+which give you a [Core Web Vitals report](https://web.dev/vitals/) in their
+admin console. Kind of cool, I’m not going to lie.
+
+This whole idea about frontend and backend merging into [SSR (server-side
+rendering)](https://www.debugbear.com/blog/server-side-rendering) looks so good
+on paper. It almost doesn’t come with any major flaws.
+
+But when it comes to the actual implementation, there is much to be desired.
+I’m going to lump [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/) and
+[Nuxt.js](https://nuxtjs.org/) together because they are essentially the same
+thing, just a different library.
+
+Now comes the reality. Mixing backend and frontend in this manner creates this
+weird mental model where you kind of rely on magical properties of these
+libraries. You relinquish control over to them for better developer experience.
+But is that really true? Initially, I was so stoked about it. However, the more
+I used them, the more I felt uncomfortable. I felt dirty, actually. Maybe this
+is because I come from old ways of doing things where you control every step of
+request, and allowing something to hijack it feels like blasphemy.
+
+More than that, some pretty significant technical issues arose from this. How do
+you do JWT token authentication? You put it in `api` folder and then do some
+fetching and storing into local state management. But doing this also requires
+some tinkering with await/async stuff on the React/Vue side of things. And then
+you need to write middleware for it. And the more I look at it, the more I see
+that this whole thing was not meant to be used like this, and it all feels and
+looks like a huge hack.
+
+The issue I have with this is that they over-promise and under-deliver. They
+want to be an all-in-one replacement for everything, and they don’t deliver on
+this promise. And how could they?! We have to be fair. It is an impossible task.
+
+They sell you [NoOps](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/overview-of-noops/), but
+when you need to accomplish something a little bit more out of the scope of
+Hello World, you have to make hacky decisions to make it work. And having a
+deployment strategy that relies on many moving parts is never a good idea.
+Abstracting too much is usually a sign of bad architecture.
+
+Lately, this has become a huge trend that will for sure bite us in the future.
+And let’s not get it twisted. By doing this, PaaS providers like
+[AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/), [GCS](https://cloud.google.com/), etc. obscure
+their billing, and you end up paying more than you really should. And even if
+that is not an issue, it comes down to the principle of things. AWS is known for
+having multiple “currencies“ inside their projects like write operations, read
+operations, etc. which add up, and it creates this impossible to track billing
+scheme. It all behaves suspiciously like a pay-to-win game you could find on
+mobile phones that scams you out of your money.
+
+And as far as I am concerned, the most important thing was me not coding the
+functionalities for the game I want to make. I was battling libraries and cloud
+providers. How to deploy, what settings are relevant. Bad documentation or
+multiple versions of achieving the same thing. You are getting bombarded by all
+this information, and you don’t really have any control over it.
+Production-ready code becomes a joke, essentially. Especially if you tend to
+work on that project for a prolonged period of time.
+
+All of these options end up creating a fatigue. What to choose, what not to
+choose. Unnecessary worrying about if the stack will still be deemed worthy in
+six months. There is elegance in simplicity.
+
+> JavaScript UI frameworks and libraries work in cycles. Every six months or
+> so, a new one pops up, claiming that it has revolutionized UI development.
+> Thousands of developers adopt it into their new projects, blog posts are
+> written, Stack Overflow questions are asked and answered, and then a newer
+> (and even more revolutionary) framework pops up to usurp the throne.
+> — Ian Allen
+
+And this jab at these libraries and cloud providers is not done out of malice.
+It is a real concern that I have about them. In my life, I have seen
+technologies come and go, but the basics always stick around. So surrendering
+all the power you have to a library or a cloud provider is in my opinion a
+stupid move.
+
+## Tailwind CSS still rocks!
+
+You know, many people say negative things about Tailwind. And after a lot of
+deliberation, I came to the conclusion that Tailwind is good for two types of
+developers. Tailwind is good for a complete noob or a senior developer. A
+complete noob doesn’t really care about inner workings of CSS, and a senior
+developer also doesn’t care about CSS. Well, at least, not anymore. And
+developers in between usually have the biggest issues with it. Not always of
+course, but in a lot of cases.
+
+I like the creature comforts of Tailwind. Being utility first would make me
+argue that it is actually more similar to [Sass](https://sass-lang.com/) or
+[Less](https://lesscss.org/) than something like Bootstrap. Not technically, but
+ideologically. After I started using it, I never looked back. I use it every
+time I need to do something web related.
+
+Writing CSS for general things feels like going several steps back. Instead of
+focusing on what you are actually trying to achieve, you focus on notations like
+[BEM](https://en.bem.info/methodology/css/), code structuring, optimizing HTML
+size. Just doing things that make 0.1% difference. You know that saying: Early
+optimization is the root of all evil. Exactly that.
+
+I am also not saying that Tailwind is the cure for everything. Sometimes custom
+CSS is necessary. But from what I found out in using it for almost two years in
+a production environment (on a site getting quite a lot of traffic and
+constantly being changed), I can say without any reservations that Tailwind
+saved our asses countless times. We would be rewriting CSS all the time without
+it. And I don’t really think writing CSS is the best way to spend my time.
+
+I have also noticed that people who criticize Tailwind the most never actually
+used it in a real project that has a long lifetime with plenty of changes that
+will happen in the future.
+
+But you know, whatever floats your boat!
+
+## Code maintainability
+
+Somehow, people also stopped talking about maintenance. If you constantly try to
+catch the latest and greatest train, you are by that logic always trying new
+things. Which is a good thing if you want to learn about technologies and try
+them. But for the production environment, you have to have a stable stack that
+doesn’t change every 6 months.
+
+You can lock dependencies for sure. Nevertheless, the hype train moves along
+anyway. And the mindset this breeds goes against locking the code. This
+bleeding-edge rolling release cycle is not helping. That is why enterprise
+solutions usually look down on these popular stacks and only do bare minimum to
+appear hip and cool.
+
+With that said, I still think that progress is good, but should be taken with a
+grain of salt. If your project is something that should be built once and then
+rarely updated, going with the latest stack is a possible way to go. But, if you
+are working on a project that lasts for years, you should probably approach it
+with some level of caution. Web development is often times too volatile.
+
+## Web development has a marketing issue
+
+I noticed that almost every project now has this marketing spin put on it.
+Everything is blazingly fast now. I get it, they are competing for your
+attention, but what happened to just being truthful and not inflating reality.
+
+And in order to appeal to mass market, they leave things out of their marketing
+materials. These open-source projects are now behaving more and more like
+companies do. Which is a scary thought on its self.
+
+And we are also seeing a rise in a concept of building a company in the open,
+which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But when it is using open-source to
+lure people and then lock them in their ecosystem, there is where I have issues
+with it.
+
+This might be because I have been using GNU/Linux for 20 years now and have been
+so beholden for my success to open-source that I see issues when open-source is
+being used to trick people into a false sense of security that these projects
+are built in the spirit of open-source. Because there is a difference. They are
+NOT! They have a really specific goal in mind. And the open-source is being used
+as a delivery system. Which is in my opinion disgusting!
+
+## Conclusion
+
+I will end my post with this. Web development is running now in circles. People
+are discovering [RPC](https://www.tutorialspoint.com/remote-procedure-call-rpc)
+now and this is the now the next big thing. [GraphQL](https://graphql.org/) is
+so passé. And I am so tired of it all. Of blazingly fast libraries, of all these
+new technologies that are actually just a remake of old ones. Of just the
+general spirit of the web. I will just use what I already know. Which worked 10
+years ago and will work 10 years after this. I will adopt a couple of little
+tools like Vite. But I will not waste my time on this anymore.
+
+It was a good exercise to get in touch with what’s new now. Nothing really
+changed that much. FOMO is now cured! Now I have to get my ass back to actually
+code and make the project that I wanted to make in the first place.