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Huh? If you don't want to write bare HTML/CSS/JS you can use one of the many frameworks that make writing web apps easier. Even if you hate React or Vue you can use Alpine. If you really hate Javascript you can use HTMX.

The web has the best tooling out of any platform because it's the biggest platform. It also has the best documentation... because it's the biggest platform.

I don't know what your point is, that web development is hard or complicated? Writing web apps are way easier than writing iOS apps.

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Web tooling is still not great.

It’s still too low-level. We shouldn’t be writing div over and over with different interacting class properties. Something like SvelteKit’s level of frontend/backend integration feels 5 years too late.

Ultimately it seems like the web ecosystem gets trapped in local maxima (“put JS in everything!”) and really seems to avoid actually creating useful, productivity-enhancing primitives. And that comes from loving the trinity of web tech so much you cannot imagine life without them.

> We shouldn’t be writing div over and over with different interacting class properties.

This is why we have frameworks like React with components, so you don't have to do this.

Even if you don't want to use a framework, you can use Web Components which allow you to create "productivity-enhancing primitives".

Is writing a div and classes really low level? Even if you think that, there are numerous full featured component libraries available for web, where you don't need to write a single div or a class.

My point is that web development is a lot more of a moving target than iOS Native Development and it's largely because Apple makes the hardware, the software, the development tools and the languages and frameworks and they all work together. There are open source libraries in there (SQLite for the default data persistence layer) but it's all vetted and works.

I've been a web developer before (all the way back to and before the ExtJS days) and while I _can_ do it I really prefer not to. The web does not have "the best tooling out of any platform" or "the best documentation... because it's the biggest platform". The tooling tends to be all over the place (until Visual Studio Code takes over the planet... :/) and frameworks like React or Vue hide a lot of complexity that you have to dig into if something goes blooey. This is not to mention the page bloat or security holes you get when you include some handful of analytics "libraries".

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