And unfortunately “productive” needs to be part of the package. I have worked with some incredibly smart people that I really respected who had a very hard time getting anything done.
Thanks, I really didn’t get what they meant with the example they were using.
Out of curiosity why is writing everything as a single element type more ergonomic? I’ve not done frontend web dev in a while and using <p> <h1> and so on seems like it would be more ergonomic to express intent.
The reason why it's so tempting to just use `<div>` everywhere is that `<div>` elements have very simple and predictable behaviour with regards to styling, composition and event handling.
Same cannot be said for a lot of other HTML elements, which often have bizarre and inconvenient rules when it comes to style-ability, or nest-ability.
At work we use snapshot tests to see visual changes to ui. It helps a lot with code review especially with adding edge case data to tight designs.
We use ui tests specifically for testing accessibility, analytics and data passed along during navigation.
We use fixtures for all of this.
None of these tests really help with bugs. What they do help with is:
- Making sure the ui stays really decoupled from the business logic. This helps a lot with getting the data unit tested which does help a lot with bugs.
- Making sure that analytics and accessibility are not forgotten about. This helps a ton when refactoring.
- Making the intent of the code really clear during review.
It takes a bit of practice and being ruthless about removing/fixing stuff that’s not helping. I have found it makes it much easier for new developers to work, review code and understand how the code is organized. YMMV.
I think a lot about the effect that ad-driven business models and open source must have had on the propensity to spend money on software products. Both in terms of pricing and in terms of build vs. buy. Mostly because I’m always musing about software developers’ hard earned reputation as the cheapest customer demographic on Earth.
I think about it too, sometimes. You know all the jokes/anecdotes about Microsoft and Bill Gates specifically calling Linux users and open source devs "communists" and accusing them of destroying the software industry? To the extent they actually said this, they were absolutely right - open source culture is very much responsible for destroying the viability of a simple and honest "pay money in exchange for value" business model in software. This of course didn't make software free - the market switched to monetizing it with worse, end-user-abusing models, like SaaS subscriptions and "free, but with ads".
FWIW, I'm still enjoying, using and supplying open source, especially that as a power user, I can get a better deal on the whole thing. However, I think we need to recognize the unintended consequences this has, and that in a sense, we're ourselves responsible for the shitty and abusive industry we work in and live with.
It really has caused a race to the bottom anywhere it becomes the primary business model. Everyone hates it but no one’s got a solve to get people paying for things once they are “free”.
Unity is a really good alternative. Flash kinda went sideways and started really trying to lean into the Java crowd with flex. Unity is more like what would have happened if Flash heavily leaned into what it did well.
Unity is a bad alternative because it requires programming. It's also much more complex since it's a game engine, not a scriptable vector animation thing.
With Flash, you could just follow some tutorials and make something nice in no time, fully understanding what you're doing.
Flash didn't "lean into" Flex. Flex was an Eclipse-based IDE and a set of libraries that some people used for some projects. It was specifically aimed at building apps. There were layouts, controls and all that. There was a list view with cell reuse, in 2008! It was much more like Android layout system then what the web had and still has. Flex was a tool that's very good for some jobs and completely unfit for others — like any other tool, really.
Yes. And the tooling is pretty straightforward to plug into generally if you need to tweak things. I’ve found that the biggest barrier here is generally not in openapi tooling, but in getting people to take time out to leverage it. This is one of those places that having lots of options and alternatives typically makes things worse.
