Cole PetersFeb 28, 2023

In my latest long form article for Begin:

For years now, the most popular JS frameworks have carried out intense marketing initiatives based on the premise of improving developer experience (#DX). What is it about these promises of great DX that is consistently delivering poor user experiences? Can we change our approach to DX for the betterment of end users?

Plus a wild segue into the world of hand forged scissors đź‘€

https://begin.com/blog/posts/2023-02-28-redefining-developer-experience

Redefining Developer Experience — Begin Blog

For years now, the most popular JS frameworks have carried out intense marketing initiatives based on the premise of improving developer experience (DX). What is it about these promises of great DX that is consistently delivering poor user experiences? Can we change our approach to DX for the betterment of end users?

Begin
Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023

Pretty interesting blog post. It resonated a lot with what I think about the state-of-art of modern “frontend” development and software development. Replace React or JS with the complexity of having to deal with Docker, Kubernetes, Serverlless functions, etc. Also resonates a lot with what DHH postes in https://world.hey.com/dhh/saas-startups-will-have-to-care-about-productivity-again-78d4bd1a

@colepeters

SaaS startups will have to care about productivity again

When the money flows freely, and there's a strong cachet to having tons of open positions, you can be forgiven to think that the individual productivity on a product team just doesn't matter. So much time is spent coordinating the work anyway. Who cares if the stack you're using takes twice the number of people to ship meaningful updat...

Show threadGuido Marucci Blas
I totally agree with the problems of not understanding fundamentals. Sure for a simple web app you don’t need to know the underpinnings of the HTML spec or know how an OS works, know system programming etc. Most probably it shouldn’t be how you learn how to code at first. But I do think that eventually you need to know these things.
Mar 8, 2023 at 9:33pmIceCubesApp
Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023
Same with algorithms, discrete mathematics and computer science. Is it necessary for writting a mobile app or web app, probably not but it is important to understand at least 1 abstraction layer under what you normally use and, at least in my case, it taught me how to “think”.
Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023
The fundamentals are pretty useful when you have to approach a problem you’ve never seen before. It gives you more tools to tray to tackle the problem. Also it helps you to better understand or model how you design will respond to different scenario. Sure early optimization is probably bad but for example choosing the right data structures and algorithm does not take too much upfront cost and would probably result in better software
Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023
There is one thing that’s mentioned in the blog post https://begin.com/blog/posts/2023-02-28-redefining-developer-experience that I think should be read carefully. I’m not saying this is the intent of @colepeters but as I’ve seen too many times before the pendulum is gonna swing. I could easily see people interpreting this as frameworks / libraries are not necessary. Why using other languages Javascript is good enough. Sure, it a lot of cases that’s true but we have frameworks and alternative languages for a reason.
Redefining Developer Experience — Begin Blog

For years now, the most popular JS frameworks have carried out intense marketing initiatives based on the premise of improving developer experience (DX). What is it about these promises of great DX that is consistently delivering poor user experiences? Can we change our approach to DX for the betterment of end users?

Begin
Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023

Software is getting more complex, in part because the tools got more complex but in parte because the use cases, business needs or what you need to accomplish to differentiate is bigger.

Therefore having a framework o language that helps you avoid a lot of incental complexity is good (when you need them).

Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023

Personally I stayed away of modern frontend development, in part because I was the CTO of my company and I wasn’t coding and in part because it didn’t like at all the current state of frontend development. Too much shit to deal with.

I did have a completely different experience using Elm, personally it would be my go-to-language for any frontend development and I don’t I would need anything else.

Show threadGuido Marucci BlasMar 8, 2023
For me Elm is an excellent example of language, paradigm and tool that strikes the right balance between DX that translate to high quality software that translate to good UX.