I’m a web developer and can't make anymore the simplest web app

I have yet to see a &quot;modern&quot; JavaScript project that wasn&#x27;t a witches brew of shitty decisions and dependency hell.<p>The last one I looked at, had an npm dependency tree like crab grass. No less than 9 copies of the same module, all different versions between 0.x and 6.x - and all that module does is parse query strings.<p>The best part was when the developer of said module release v6 changing all `var`s into `let`s and `const`s and then basically responded to people who filed bugs along the lines of &quot;fuck you not my problem&quot;.<p>The last few years have seen both JavaScript and PHP gain community powered package management tools that actively encourage this type of behaviour, and until cool-kid developers understand that they need to actually be aware of the code they&#x27;re relying on, nothing will change.

This is so very, very silly. Yes, there are lots of options... just like development on any other platform or in any other language. If you allow yourself to be sidetracked by all the shiny things, of course you&#x27;ll never get any real work done. And if decision paralysis is preventing you from even <i>starting</i> the project... well, I&#x27;m sorry to say you may not have the stamina that&#x27;s needed to see a project to it&#x27;s full completion.<p>Really, it&#x27;s just so simple- <i>Write the code that does the stuff.</i> That&#x27;s it. Everything else is bullshit. Pick a framework at random. Don&#x27;t write tests. Use vanilla javascript. Don&#x27;t bother with a build tool. That&#x27;s really all there is to it. Every other decision is premature- you likely do not know your requirements yet, much less understand the costs and benefits of gulp vs grunt. Don&#x27;t even try. Just start writing. When the problem becomes apparent, <i>then</i> cross that bridge. Yes, you will re-write a lot of code. Pull up your pants and get it done. Re-writing code is always better than never-writing code.<p>You don&#x27;t need to collect all your tools before you begin. Just start your work.

If the issue is really making the <i>simplest</i> web app, the principal of YAGNI should be applied liberally.<p>Complex dependencies that add up-front development burden should be added only if, and only when, there is an expected benefit justifying the cost.

&gt; Remember, this is a simple personal project, I mostly wanted to have fun, so my mind was set to zero-tolerance mode. As soon as something annoyed me I went away looking for something else to smoothen my experience<p>...<p>&gt; Javascript mixed with HTML seems ugly after having tried React<p>I think these highlight the real problem. Because we are constantly bombarded by such cool tech, it is easy to notice that some aspect of something could be done in a better way. The key to success is to ignore those minor papercuts and just focus persisting on your own project.

Here is a great link from today. &quot;JavaScript fatigue fatigue&quot; <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.2ality.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;js-fatigue-fatigue.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.2ality.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;js-fatigue-fatigue.html</a><p>&gt; Don’t try to know everything – it’s impossible in modern web development.

I&#x27;m getting really tired of these sort of posts&#x2F;comments on how hard it is to make a &quot;simple website&quot; these days. If you want to make a website the old way no one is stopping you. Tools exist because no one wants to do it the old way because the old way sucks.<p>Which combination of tools should you use? Ember if you have no idea where to start - otherwise thing about the problem you have with other tools and find tools that solve those problems.

I wonder how many people can rewrite the same article?

The title is misleading. Should be changed to &quot;I&#x27;m a web developer and I realized that chasing after every new tech under the sun can be counterproductive&quot;.<p>I do agree that with the semi-recent &quot;resurgence&quot; of Javascript there&#x27;s an abundance of frameworks and tools out there both for the client and server side making the selection of the &quot;ecosystem&quot; that would fit your needs challenging.<p>My take on this is stick to the basics until you realize that you need to look into something new. Client-side technology upgrades are reasonably simple as long as the client-server contract is defined up front (we doing old school gets&#x2F;posts or ajax or wss etc?).<p>Server-side decisions are a little more tricky than that but once you commit to a definite decision on the server side tech, the specifics can be worked out down the road without affecting the client.

Two way binding is hard in react? I never noticed. My only react app so far is basically a giant form (I split it into 5 tabs based on categories so there wasn&#x27;t too much on the page at a time), and I had zero problem doing so.<p>Granted the analysis paralysis wasn&#x27;t so bad as react was much newer when I started, so I didn&#x27;t even look at redux (though looking at it now, I&#x27;m still not sure what problem I was supposed to have that it solves).<p>As far as packing everything into a single file, I used make which would pipe cat through a minifier (or not minified with &quot;make debug&quot;).<p>So ironically, I suppose all these new tools have made it harder to get started on React, which is perhaps the point of the article.

How many more of these articles do I have to read?<p>How many more of these comments do you have to read?

&gt; I envisioned the opportunity to try out a few new things I’ve been reading about online, refresh my web-dev tools and have some fun.<p>&gt; The core of the problem is choice and the overwhelming abundance of tools to choose from.<p>Excuse me, did you want to <i>try out a few new things</i>, <i>refresh web-dev tools</i>, <i>have some fun</i> or start coding immediately?<p>Because, it looks like: I am chief-cooker and i can&#x27;t cook simple meal. There are so much vegetables, juices, it looks like a game.<p>&gt; I want a bread for my meal.<p>Leavened, Rye, Flatbread?<p>Uhhh, ohhh, it&#x27;s too haaard, i wanted to try new things, but I&#x27;m seeking for best, standard choice.

&gt; I’ve already laid out my models, but React.js likes to mix models and states and properties, so I had to rethink it<p>=&gt; Redux<p>&gt; this Gulp configuration file...<p>=&gt; Webpack<p>This might be opinionated but for a personal SPA pet project without any legacy a good up to date stack has ES6&#x2F;Babel, React, Redux, Webpack included. Curious what others prefer.

ClojureScript. Just learn that; the ClojureScript community will keep it up with the times, and you can help out too at times. Yes, you&#x27;ll have to debug a little under the hood, but your background should be sufficient for that.

The solution is to use a boilerplate&#x2F;generator. I&#x27;ve used one for every JS project I&#x27;ve started in the past two years.<p>The main benefit is that you get something that already has the whole development&#x2F;test&#x2F;build workflow set up, with your framework of choice. Then you can tweak things as necessary.<p>Since all of the processes should be able to be run through a small set of CLI commands, there isn&#x27;t much mental overhead switching between projects.

Seems like the author just has trouble making good choices.

&gt; Having worked mostly with C# in the last months, I remembered how cool it is to have a statically typed language<p>Really? I used to work with Java. I sometimes miss type checking, but I don&#x27;t miss the Java type system - is C# a lot better?