
The sorry state of the programming world as of the end of 2016 AD - zuzuleinen
https://dorinlazar.ro/the-sorry-state-of-the-programming-world-as-of-the-end-of-2016-ad/
======
stupidcar
_reads title_

"I bet this is going to be another protracted, entitled rant that boils down
to 'I hate JavaScript'"

 _clicks_

"Yep."

If you've read any of the 1000s of identical whinefests that has been upvoted
on HN in the past few years, then save yourself the bother of reading this one
as well.

~~~
hashkb
Damn, read article before comments. (OK, skimmed). You could have saved me 5
minutes.

------
wccrawford
Why do so many people expect everything to be perfect all the time? Why does
it always seem to be the ones that aren't doing anything to help the situation
that complain the loudest about it?

Yes, we've got a _lot_ of tools that solve a lot of problems, most of which an
individual probably doesn't need. Sounds pretty awesome to me, actually. It
means we're experimenting and making progress.

Nobody is forced to use those tools, despite what so many people claim. If you
don't want to work in the same way as other developers at that company, don't
accept the job. Find somewhere else. Be a freelancer.

On the other hand, if you do manage to find that magical unicorn of a job
where everything is perfect, take it! I've never seen it, and I doubt it
exists, but it'd be awesome if it does.

If you try to fix the problem, you'll end up in the same situation as all the
people you're screaming at: Yet another tool that fixes all kinds of problems,
but nobody other than yourself will actually need that exact set of problems
fixed. (And you probably don't, either.)

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perlgeek
Here's the thing. The state of programming will always suck.

We now know how to create a CRUD web application that scales well enough for
most businesses, using little effort, with well-established authentication and
session management.

Twenty years ago, writing such a thing would have been a big deal.

In twenty years (or maybe sooner), that won't even involve programming, much
like clicking things in a spreadsheet doesn't feel like "real" programming
anymore. Maybe we already have point-and-click applications for creating such
applications. Dunno.

It's just that nobody is interested in simple CRUD applications anymore.
Today, you need live data and streaming, responsive design, autocomplete for
every input box etc. The interesting stuff in programming is always going to
be at the edge of what's possible (or what's practical), and that will always
be in a sorry state, almost by definition.

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funthree
Check out what I did in one commit several years ago. Maybe you can get a
multi-million dollar idea from it like others have (meteor, app.js, etc)

Somehow people could change the internet to suit this project to fix
everything. Single files of jquery on disparate servers that connect to one
frontend could transform the web and undo the big problems.

[https://github.com/tblobaum/nQuery](https://github.com/tblobaum/nQuery)

------
carsongross
_We have the most sophisticated tools ever, in the history of man-kind._

The debugger I use in Chrome is a worse experience than the Visual Basic
debugger I used 20 years ago.

Programmers have very weak institutional memory.

 _And the real problem is not Javascript, is not, really. The problem is the
HTTP + HTML model. It no longer works. And we work around it the wrong way._

I disagree strongly with this. We know how to use HTML and http very
effectively. And there are ways to address the UX shortcomings of standard
HTML that avoid writing reams of JavaScript.

People underestimate HTML.

~~~
samspenc
> The debugger I use in Chrome is a worse experience than the Visual Basic
> debugger I used 20 years ago.

I've used both the Chrome debugger and the VB debugger (so you know how old I
am!) and I won't speak to your comment directly, but...

You have no idea how many times the Chrome JS debugger has saved my rear. :)
I've been able to fix JS issues that used to take hours to debug in a few
minutes since Chrome came out with its JS debugger.

Firefox and IE's debuggers have gotten better - but not as good as Chrome's.

And the reason I think JS debuggers aren't as good as, say, VB or Java's, is,
IMHO, purely a language issue.

With an interpreted language like Javascript that allows re-definition of any
function or object ("prototype") or variable, I don't think the debugging
tools can get any better until the language changes (which, as the author
points out, is a hard sell.)

~~~
carsongross
Oh, absolutely: the Chrome debugger is the best of the bunch and a huge step
forward from where we were a few years ago.

On the other hand, it shows just how little historical knowledge programmers
have that many people don't recognize that it isn't better than technology
from decades ago.

------
danmaz74
TL;DR: Javascript sucks, Frameworks suck, Agile sucks.

------
aashishkoirala
The level of vitriol here put me off, so I didn't bother reading all of it.
Does he actually propose any solution to this so called problem he whines
about?

