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Re: Modern web dev is fantastically more productive and efficient than it was 10 or 15 years ago.

I have to disagree. The esthetical expectations of the user/customer are higher now. If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old tech. And you have the desktop/mobile split that frameworks only get half right and require days of black-box fiddling to get working right on all devices. And JavaScript gizmos often "break" as new browser versions or related components come out. It's almost as bad as the "DLL hell" that desktop applications used to face.

From a purely utility standpoint, I was much more productive back then because I only had to make it work and be easy to use, not "pretty" and animated with toys or the latest style fad.

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I submit that having ten thousand node.js/npm dependencies is far worse than any DLL Hell that has ever been experienced to date.

Hmmm, I just tried to install emacs on windows. With all dependencies is 210meg! Tried installing vnc on Ubuntu following commonly found instructions. Required installing 119 packages (each of which is likely built from several libraries). I also tried building smb from source. It required tons of dependencies to be installed. Is npm actually any worse than any other environment?

10000 > 100

> If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old tech

Is that even true? Is there any survey showing that users consider those bad or old tech? Because with things like the reddit, ebay, paypal, gmail redesign, the common thing i ve noticed is that nobody asked for those.

That's just my experience. If a customer pays for a new gizmo, they want the "latest and greatest". If it doesn't look latest and greatest to them, they feel slighted. I'm not saying it's necessarily rational, only that it's the way customers on average react. They don't always say it directly, but word gets around. I've seen it many times. Humans judge books by covers.

As far as old-looking sites like Ebay, if an Ebay competitor appeared with equivalent services and product choices, yet LOOKED fancier/stylish, Ebay would start to lose customers. Lucky for Ebay, no such site exists. (If they appeared, Ebay would probably spend on a visual revamp.)

Right, but it seems to me that an entire - and unbelievably rich - industry is moving along with “just my experience“ when it comes to UIs.

End users very consistently hate breaking changes, regardless design or functional.

True, but it's hard to get new customers unless your "art" keeps up with the Joneses. A revised product is still usually more similar to the last version than another vendor's product such that existing users will usually stick around because a same-vendor overhaul is the least of two evils to them.

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