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Comment by vturner | Hacker News Reader

"I have to confess, the build setup is the most intimidating part of modern web development for me."

Here here.

I feel sorry for the generation who didn't experienced the "drop file on ftp client, it's on the internet" experience. No setup, no build tools ...

I feel worse for the me of eight years ago maintaining an SPA codebase where everything was thrown on window with dozens of global stylesheets.

Shhhh. Don't tell anybody - but that still works.

Even with an SPA - assuming you use a framework that doesn't force you through a build pipeline.

It cannot be simple - it's there to intimidate the new employees/team members. The setup is never wrong, but "the way we do it here" - a particular initiation ceremony. Those indocile will be reported to line manager as bad team members who undermine the team spirit. Usually a junior QA person and a scrum master are the gatekeepers of the setup, green build, and the history of git commit messages.

In all seriousness, if this is what you encounter at your workplace, you need to get out and work somewhere else; this is an extremely toxic environment.

Even if the build setup is the most complex thing on the face of the earth, if you or team members get reported for undermining the team because you don't understand it, then those are not the team members or managers you want to work with or for.

* hear hear

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