
What I learned from being a web developer for 17 years - secondary
https://community.risingstack.com/ive-been-a-web-developer-for-17-years-and-this-is-what-i-learned-daniel-khan/
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pleasecalllater
Come on, autoplayed videos? Just respect your readers. I have my music in my
headphones. I'm not going to read your website if you don't respect me. No,
changing my browser with some autoplay-disabling-plugin doesn't convince me to
read what you wrote.

Yea, I know that most probably the author won't read it :)

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ldev
Give him another 17 years and he might learn some basics.

~~~
pleasecalllater
I must write such an article on my blog. Some clickable title like "37 things
I have learned during the last 37 years"...

The list would be quite short:

\- use Postgres \- don't irritate your readers (e.g. with autoplay videos,
sounds, making accounts to read anything) \- make the page lite (with terribly
small usage of javascript)

(then repeat the above 12 times) and the final thing would be:

\- just read some books about programming, learn KISS, YAGNI, DI, OFA (other
funny abbreviations) - and use it

~~~
LoSboccacc
\- set aside a time after every iOS release to retest the frontend because
apple _will_ have broken some part of the standard in amusing and hilarious
ways.

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mgkimsal
I've hit this situation a few times in the past couple of years:

Work done from 2000-2005... someone emails me and says "hey, this isn't
working now".

In all 3 cases, I was _flummoxed_ that these systems were still in use, and
had been for years. There was a big mixture of shame and pride. Shame - code
wasn't as good as it could have been, although I do remember why some corners
were cut (time/budget usually, although "lack of knowledge" hit now and then),
but it was also early styling of MVC - things were fairly separated, easy to
locate where changes should be made, etc.

These were all PHP4 projects, and after upgrades to PHP 5.5 or 5.6 (or other
server changes) something wasn't working. That this code worked for ... 12-14
years without being touched was... again, both a bit scary, but also a decent
point of pride.

I'm not sure you can really truly appreciate that sort of "man, this code
might be functioning for a LONG time - like, a decade or more" feeling when
you're, say, 23. You simply don't have the frame of reference. Not saying you
can't write good, solid, dependable, future-proof systems at 23, but I don't
think it should be a given, either.

EDIT: Put another way, having to deal with your own code from 10+ years ago is
both an extremely educational and humbling experience, and I think developers
need to go through it. However, you can't really have that experience until
you've done it for more that 10 years.

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natoliniak
I have disabled auto play, so, tldr:

\- history likes to repeat itself and the tech industry is prime for another
crash.

\- therefore be flexible

\- just because you can doesn't mean you should jump on a latest fashionable
JS framework bandwagon

\- dry principle

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sklivvz1971
20 years web dev here, pretty much agree with everything the author wrote.
Exactly my experience and conclusions.

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lukaszkups
10 years of experience webdev here - I agree with most of the stuff author
wrote there.

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PleaseHelpMe
bash javascript but the ad shown on the left told me : "time to become a node
hero". How ironic.

~~~
talmand
I didn't see where javascript was bashed?

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AbuAssar
lots of personal historical and unneeded info he got there

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funkyy
Autoplay videos and loads of blocked elements from Ublock - no thanks. Seems
he learned nothing.

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mabey
bit disappointed he never learned how annoying autoplay videos are...

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karlshea
And in all that time he didn't learn that autoplay videos are a pox and no one
wants to sign up for your fucking newsletter.

Not only did I scroll down far enough that I didn't know where the video was
playing from, but as soon as I found it and hit pause the full-screen sign up
modal popped up. So I guess I got about two paragraphs in before I closed the
tab.

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crestedtazo
30 years experience web dev here, probably much more successful than the
author and everyone else in this thread.

Fully agree with the author here. 10/10

