There is challenging for the wrong reasons then there is challenging for the right reasons.

You will want to make sure you work on things that are challenging for the right reasons.

I've heard this described as inherent complexity versus accidental complexity.

Inherent complexity (due to difficult real-world constraints) is fine. Accidental complexity, like that caused by overcomplicated tools or architectural decisions, just feels bad.

And then you have weaponized accidental complexity, aiding cv-driven development and vendor lock-in (which are really the same sort of thing).

Hey, leave next.js, react router and vercel alone!

Why do I enjoy writing shell scripts then?

That is another axis around quick feedback loops. A shell script comes with a repl you don’t even need to invoke!

There is a threshold where you can still make things work right despite the accidental complexity, and some enjoy that challenge, but beyond that threshold you just have to accept that things won’t work right. CSS is very often beyond that threshold.

Then some stakeholder just doen’t like a thing for silly reasons and never can anyone always be happy - for cheap at least

I appreciate things that are well laid out. I just don't get satisfaction from pixel pushing myself. It might be different if it was a small product or one I was vested I from the beginning or owned. OTOH backend implementation details I go out of my way to do at my best probably goes beyond what many others consider necessary especially when no one really sees it or may never be a practically relevant design or performance issue.

Whats so terrible about the modern frameworks?

I used to have that attitude, but after trying the latest version of ReactJS I think its pretty nifty for what its intention is.

For me, personally, React makes up too many new things just with potentially slight modification and thus adding unnecessary layers of complexity. Then it is incredibly painful if you're ever in a position to debug someone else's code when they were using react. It's not as bad as having to deal with graphQL but it's still pretty awful.

Unfortunately in web programming, an inordinate amount of time is spent on concentrating on the rendering side, messing around with the CSS/CSS framework, because thats what people see, and less on understanding state flow or the backend data model. That on top of deadlines, and have a recipe for disaster. It actually took me, a seasoned programmer with 15+ years professional experience, a few weeks to understand React one-way data binding to the degree that my UI did not have severe bugs.

But when you do have a nice component hierarchy, reasonable CSS and proper data flow mechanisms, its quite nice what it can accomplish, that would not almost unfathomable with Vanilla JS.

That was sarcasm, I think.

I am not even sure whether the sentence you quoted is genuine or sarcastic.

I'm pretty sure it was irony.

Eh, this article has absolutely nothing to do with web frameworks?