Why is Web Development so F@*king Hard?

Web development was designed to be simple when the consumer web first started, as the first browsers only allowed for simple text views to be displayed. When combined with the limited bandwidth speeds at the time, web experiences had to be super simple to be downloaded at an acceptable speed.

Oh, how things have changed since the first browser launched in 1993 - the year Mosaic was created at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by computer scientist Marc Andreessen.

Constant, non-stop change has caused the simple to become complex, or at least the massive amount of options has enabled humans to make the simple more complex. A couple key examples of why web development has become so complicated include the following:

1. The web was never intended to be used the way it is today, so it simply wasn’t engineered to support everything it does today.
2. Every web experience now requires a dozen various views given the massive proliferation of devices, various OS and browsers. Each view requires extensive coding and quality assurance testing.
3. The front-end web framework landscape is in constant turmoil with new frameworks and updates occurring monthly. Jquery to Angular to React to Vue to Next, it’s all out of control. In an attempt to optimize various programming languages, hundreds of transpiled languages have entered the industry, such as CoffeeScript, Dart, TypeScript, PureScript, Elm, ClojureScript, Scala.js, Opal, Transcrypt, PharoJS - and the list keeps growing.
4. The web browser’s DOM is a mess of software abstractions and perhaps the most complicated aspect of web engineering. To make well-designed, engaging web pages, your website’s files need to access each other, and the Document Object Model (or DOM) makes this possible.

Real-World Example 

A quick real-world example of daily complexities within Integrity is captured in the below Slack exchange between senior developers navigating how to make changes to an e-commerce solution (their new Apple MacBoook Pros with the new Apple M1 chip caused workflow issues). Read the below and you'll understand how this would be a challenge for almost anyone to fully comprehend:

Our Approach

At Integrity, we provide answers to web development solutions, tooling and approach via the requirements for the site or web app you want to build. We start with questions like “What are your business objectives?”, “What is your budget?” and “How much value does this app/site produce?” and “How many users do you need to support?”. 

Once you’ve answered these types of foundational questions, we decide on the most effective technologies and architectures for addressing your specific needs - with a core goal of keeping everything as simple and manageable as possible.

Contact us today to learn more about our web engineering services.

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