> So your point is that the web when JavaScript and CSS were in their infancy, before web standards existed and were widely adopted, before AJAX and when you had to use "a lot of hacks" to implement streaming... that _that_ web was somehow easier to work with than the modern web? That sounds delusional.

My point was that the amount of hacks required these days has grown exponentially.

> VRML, along with Java applets, ActiveX, Flash, and a myriad other technologies around that time were decidedly not web-native

Ofcourse they weren't. I never implied otherwise.

> Nowadays all of these technologies are dead, replaced by native web alternatives.

Indeed. Technologies that are exponentially harder to write the same code in. Hence my point: modern web tech is a shitshow.

> Which particular standards are you referring to? Native HTML5/CSS3/ES2015+ are stable and well supported standards, and you've been able to target them for nearly a decade now. Their capabilities are obviously much greater compared to the early web, but this is what happens when platforms evolve. If you dislike using them, then I can't convince you otherwise, but I'm arguing against your point that the state of the web was somehow better in the 90s.

You're fixated on that point and it's not what I said. I said it was easier to grok in the 90s and has just gotten worse over time. Which is a fact.

I also said the current web is an unfit clusterfuck that people are Stockholm syndromed into believing is good. Everything you've posted thus far reinforces that Stockholm syndrome point.

> > React isn't popular any more.

> It's in the top 10 most popular JS libraries. And how come you're judging based on popularity anyhow? Above you were criticizing choosing technologies based on what's "in vogue at the moment" over "what's mature". React is a _mature_ UI library, and is a safe choice in 2023, unless you're chasing the latest hype train.

I haven't worked with a single engineer, how hasn't bitched and moaned about React. And I've managed a lot of engineering teams over the years.

Vue is a different matter.

> JavaScript frameworks as a concept are barely a decade old. React isn't a framework, it's a library.

It's both. The term "framework" has an pretty meaning in software and React falls under that heading quite comfortably. What's happened, and why you're confused, is that kids have overloaded the term with "web framework" to mean something more specific. React on its own isn't a "web framework" in the trendy web sense but it's still 100% a "framework" in the stricter software development sense.

This is actually another great example of the lack of consistency in the web ecosystem.

That all said, React can certainly fall under the "web framework" umbrella. Wikipedia when used in real world systems. Hence why wikipedia lists it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_JavaScript-based...

> But my point is that _today_ you don't strictly need any of them to build advanced interactive experiences.

You never had to. You're making another strawman argument because you're not only claiming I'm saying you need these frameworks (you don't) but also making it sound like this is something that's only come about because of the modern web (which isn't true).

> I thought the fact that you're reading and typing this on a forum built with simple HTML, CSS and minimal amounts of JS would make this self-evident. (The fact it uses a bespoke backend is irrelevant; this could just as well be served by a mainstream backend stack.)

HN is far from your typical website. lol

> Nice humblebrag again, but if you'd be willing to accept that the web has grown exponentially since the days you were building websites before JavaScript and CSS existed, that there are orders of magnitude more web developers and software now than back then, and that the core web technologies are more mature and stable than they've ever been, then you'd be able to see that the status quo is not so bad.

It's not a "humblebrag", it's an illustration that my opinion comes from years of experience using a multitude of different technologies. Honestly, I think you need to diversify your experience too because your comments fall firmly into the Stockholm syndrome bracket I described by the fact that seem completely unwilling to accept that we could have all the same power of the current web but massively more simplified and elegant if we were to redesign things from the ground up. There are so many footguns that developers need to learn simply because of the way how the web has evolved. And all you keep harping on about is that "its powerful" -- sure. But so is assembly. Yet literally no-one advocates writing commercial desktop software in assembly.

The problem here is trying to convince someone that the domain which they earn their living from is a shitshow, is simply always going to be met with opposition because you have no impartiality. Whereas people like myself and the OP do. And that's why we make the comments we do when we say that the web is unsatisfying to develop against.