FAO: Osgood

Zeld has always spoken a lot of sense but is an old has-been now, a bit like both of us, maybe wise old has-beens, with a great deal of experience, knowledge and common sense but it counts for nothing now. We are on a roller coaster ride into a generation of web-developers who are inadequate without the reliance, dependence on frameworks, extensions, point and shoot software.........just to build simple websites. To me it's all become pretty sad to be honest. I hate the profession now and glad I only have a couple of years left or can at least walk away when I feel the time has come...........but that will happen to the generation now who are using frameworks, something else will come along and they will suffer the same fate of course as the world moves on.

Its frightening what is happening because developers are the puppets of someone elses decisons. If they fail or become untenable the web-developer fails too or least has to start from square one and learn another process, another bit of software, another framework

Out of intrigue I tested out both Pinegrow and Wappler recently. What awful applications, both of them in my opinion for building websites. I expected that though as they are not aimed at the experienced coder/developer but someone who knows no different because they have never learned, are too lazy or just don't want to learn a better way.

Its funny really because if you look at the basic facts these 2 bits of software work no differently to the clicking and choosing which is what you would do in a program like Quark or InDesign and which I use on a daily basis, so why am I so against that workflow?

Because it's not the quickest, simplest or cleanest in terms of building websites. I know no different process when it comes to DTP because its always how the workflow was supposed to be from day 1 and I have nothing to compare it to. I can only say using a program like Pinegrow or Wappler would be a massive step in the wrong direction once you know how to code. I found trying to put anything into the work space in both applications hugely tedious and cumbersome, and as for the claim from the producers of Wappler you don't need to know any coding, well that is just hillarious.......the css panel is woefully inadequate unless you know what css attribute you want to use.

My only delight is most of the contributors in their forum seem to be old-boys over 65 just wanting something to fill their long boring days of retirement....its not professional or serious stuff these programs are being used for. I dont blame the producers for developing these kinds programs because there is a big amatuer market for them and that genrally means a nice source of income and the bottom line is money IS the route to ALL evil.

Getting back onto the subject of the article I also feel this new complexity is linked to shutting out predatory developers trying to take over websites. The more complex you can make the workflow by building the page purely from javascript, using something like Angular, the more difficult it becomes for another developer to follow the workflow easily or not at all. So whatever you can build in at the outset to make it that much more difficult for someone to 'steal' your clients is a huge reason for these new workflows creeping into todays websites, not that they do anything more or provide anything more in a lot of cases.