The tooling has become complex, sure, but so have capabilities and expectations.

I used to “make websites” in the 2000s, then stopped for about 15 years to focus on backend and infrastructure.

Have been getting back into front end the last few months — there was a good bit of learning and unlearning, but the modern web stack is amazingly productive. Next.js, Tailwind, and Supabase in particular.

Last time I checked in to frontend dev, CSS directives fit on an A4 sheet, valid XHTML was a nerd flex and rounded corners were painstakingly crafted from tables and gifs.

Frontend is a dream now :)