OT: What going on these days??

[osgood_]

As its been quiet around here for a few days I thought I would try and generate a discussion as to what the hell is going on these days in terms of website building.

Once upon a time I could go to any website, pull up the source code and I had a pretty good idea of what was going on, now I'm encountering more and more websites where I  have zero idea of what is happening.

Take this webpage for example:

https://www.ncgtp.com/resources/Pages/news.aspx

A fairly inocculous looking layout and presentation, one which could be produced in about and hour or two of hand-coding. It doesn't do anything, no movement, swipers, slideshows etc a simple form, yet look at the source code.

It has literally dozens of links to resources and dependencies - I can't even begin to count them. There is scripting injected all-over the place.

I'm totally confused as to why, what and how this has been produced and for what purpose it serves.

So the question on my lips and has been for a couple of years now - what kind of era are we in now as regards to consideration of the output of what is running and produced behind the facade. It this cutting-edge techniques, a developer with very little knowledge or a hell of a lot of knowledge or just some kind of build tools that are generating all this what seems to me like excessive coding to produce a simple page. Are we into the era of using a sledgehammer approach to crap a nut because no one has the ability and skills any longer these days beyond a click and shoot, over zealous framework approach?

Can anyone justifiably provide a good reason for such a bloated and convoluted appproach to deliver a simple page?

[Nancy OShea]

Remember what Muse engineers said not too long ago  "Muse code is for browser consumption, not human consumption. "

Web sites of the past are fading fast.  The core focus now is tracking user activity and analytics for improved "experiences."   If you shop online, you're being inundated with offers for similar products.  Where do you think that comes from? 

[osgood_]

Im consistantly surprised browsers can handle the rubbish and bloat to be honest.

Yes and doesnt it put you off going on websites that pop open a box saying - were here now, speak to us, how can we help. I usually run a mile and never go back to the website if that happens - you can over analyise to the point where you become annoying and untrustworthy but dont expect the developers of such products to have considered that aspect.

Code should not be about browser consumption as opposed to human consumption, its about providing a solution, if youre working for a client, that they can transport to another developer that can work with the code if necessary, but dont expect the developers of such products to have considered that aspect.

[Nancy OShea]

osgood_  wrote

Code should not be about browser consumption as opposed to human consumption, its about providing a solution, if you're working for a client, that they can transport to another developer that can work with the code if necessary, but don't expect the developers of such products to have considered that aspect.

Or maybe they have considered it.  And they don't want their product transferred to other developers.  Make the code so ugly nobody else on Earth will want to touch it.  In some circles that's called job security .

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea 

  wrote In some circles that's called job security

You are most likely spot on in many cases - no consideration for what's best for the client, after all they are only paying the wages.

Developers using techniques and workflows, which have mainly derived from multi billion pound companies, with thousands of hits per minute, to produce websites for companies that turn over a million a year with 500 hits a week or less. Google, Facebook, Twitter have a lot to answer for as to why web development at the lower end of the scale is currently in the mess and poor confused state it is.

[pziecina]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

A department  wants a public facing web page so they build it with the corporate CMS  because that's what's available to them.   The "developer" isn't a web developer, like you or me.

I don't think any company of any size with any thought about security would add a public facing web page/site to their secure cms site, (I know I didn't, and all managers I know would not). Doing so used to be common practice for smaller sites but not for anything larger, and requiring more than an open source cms offers, (sharepoint used to be free with MS Office, but not anymore).

So unless security is of no concern, hosting of a public facing site is 'normally' completely seperate from the intranet or companys secure site.

[BenPleysier]

Actually, the creators of the site are very savvy web developers with a lot of skill and knowledge. This can be illustrated by the fact that the Bootstrap library has been chosen for their main source of style rules. The only criticism that I have is that they are not using an HTTP/2 NGINX server which would reduce the initial load time.

Perhaps we should have a closer look at what the developers have created; it is called a Single Page Application (SPA) This is not a new concept, I used SPA over a decade ago. Back then, it did produce rather nasty looking URL's like

safeshop.com.au/index.php?mod=contact

Now, with (the knowledge of) URL rewriting, we can change this to improve usability and friendliness.

The idea of an SPA is that the index page is a template which draws the relevant content into itself.

For more on SPA's have a look at https://medium.com/@anthonygore/how-to-not-screw-up-ux-in-a-single-page-application-b1b7ebdea2c2 or Google the subject.

[osgood_]

What do all those javascript files and injected javascript code blocks have to do with a single page application?If your going to create a single page application then at least do it correctly and not use some half baked workflow which this quite clearly is.

[BenPleysier]

I think that you will find that not all of the linked files are used for this (News) particular view, but are required on other views. There are at least 22 other views that I can see.

Some of these files are:

<!-- Modernizr -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/modernizr.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- jQuery -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/jquery/2.2.4/jquery.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- Bing Maps V8 -->

<script src="//www.bing.com/api/maps/mapcontrol?branch=release"></script>

<!-- jQuery UI -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/jquery-ui/jquery-ui.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- SPServices -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/spservices/jquery.SPServices-2014.02.min.js?rev=08232..."></script>

<!-- Moment -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/moment/2.15.0/moment.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- Handlebars -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/handlebars/2.0.0/handlebars.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- Unslider -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/unslider/2.0/unslider.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- DataTables -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/datatables/1.10.10/jquery.dataTables.min.js?rev=08232..."></script>

<!-- DataTables Responsive -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/datatables-responsive/2.1.1/dataTables.responsive.min..."></script>

<!-- Cookie -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/js-cookie/2.1.3/js.cookie.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- Picturefill -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/picturefill.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- matchMedia polyfill -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/matchMedia.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- card set - match Height -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/matchHeight.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- Readmore -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/readmore.min.js?rev=08232017"></script>

<!-- Lazy Sizes Images -->

<script src="/_layouts/15/NCDOT.RNR.Branding/assets/js/libs/lazysizes.min.js?rev=09102017"></script>

and there are many more jQuery (and other) plugins.

I am not defending the concept, just saying.

[osgood_]

I looked at quite a few pages on that website and couldnt see anything out of the ordinary that would require the amount of linked scripts which  are present. On the whole its a very basic website in terms of functionality with a little bit of eye candy on the homepage.

Given the number or coding errors and the poor execution of the submit form button this is quite clearly not something that has been produced by a developer with a lot of skill and knowledge as you infere but by 'something'.

[BenPleysier]

Yes, I noticed that as well. I would call it 'sloppy' coding.

[BenPleysier]

Adding to my previous reply, REST API's are adding a lot of JavaScript to a website. This is a trend that seems to be getting a stronghold on web development. Google 'api for multi vendor website' as an example.

[Paul-M]

In my case, I have chosen a program called Wappler that utilises Bootstrap, ServerConnect and AppConnect. For those that are not familiar with Wappler, it is very similar to Dreamweaver with DMXzone extensions.

I've only had a quick look at Wappler and it looks like the code editor is too basic  ....  But I'm guessing that's not a priority for them anyway with their target audience... If Wappler wants to be considered a Dreamweaver replacement it'll need a better a code editor.

[osgood_]

That reply should really be addressed to Ben as I don't personally use Wappler, although I'm keeping tabs on it to see how it develops.

However you are right Wapplers editor does leave much to be desired but as you are aware and point out it's not a priority. Hopefully at some point they will improve that environment to maybe attract more code-orientated developers who want to take advantage of the back-end features, which might be beyond their capabilities.

However I am impressesed with what the actual programme can do despite my concerns over the niche code it creates. I guess these days with so many options available which use their own workflows  is that a real deal breaker now - I'm sitting on the fence a bit on that one now.

It would certainly be a good fit for a lot who are somehow connected/involved in web-development, maybe not those with long term ambitions but those whose job perhaps partly involves web-development or those who just want to create a website for their small company or individual requirements.

If you're happy to use a 'unique' way of producing websites then it's a real consideration. That kind of decision can only be determined by the person considering those options, their own expectations and where they want to be in 5 years time.