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Comment by _pmf_ | Hacker News Reader

> Web guys are web guys for one reason: They sincerely believe web is the future and better than native desktop software.

That's probably only a very small, but very vocal group of developers; those that seem to spend more of their time on writing about their work and their unique insights into how software development should be done (all inferred from their petty front-end dabbling) than actually doing something productive. The vast majority of web developers is developing for the web out of necessity, not because of some grandiose spiritual self-delusion.

I do of course agree with your view that this move will neither attract new developers nor keep existing developers happy.

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> The vast majority of web developers is developing for the web out of necessity.

I wouldn't call it necessity. I, for one, like the openness of the web, how it allows me to deploy software to all my users at the same time, the customization, etc. I don't believe it's the holy grail, but it's hardly out of necessity that I develop for it.

I can't speak for everyone else, but as somebody who writes a lot of Web software and very little blogs, I can say that I have plenty of grandiose spiritual self-delusion.

I may not be close to the metal, but I write good software.

"all inferred from their petty front-end dabbling"

Oh my, your horse, it is so high!

I spend far more time writing back-end code (automation, data handling, and services) more than I do front-end code. Most of that code is so that the front end can be nicer. Just because the UI I develop is web-based, doesn't mean I don't know how to write effective code. I do think that JS is an acceptable language for UI development. It is hands down the most widely used language on the planet. Gnome isn't deprecating the other interfaces, it's just that they are steering new developers to the JS interfaces. I do think that the Python guys are having a pretty bad attitude about it though. They had to pick A language as their base for documentation purposes, and I think JS is probably the most pragmatic choice here.

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a JS fan (warts and all), and with NodeJS and MongoDB it's been a far more fluid development experience than other groups of technologies I've had to work with over the past 17 years in software development. It's a pretty decent language to work with.

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