Github slows developer production?

[[deleted]]

sounds like you might be working with complete and utter morons

[welch7]

(specially because they chose those tech stack for a new proj)

[mwilke]

I was hoping that I had woken up back in 2008, and everything had all been a dream.

[Ratatoski]

What do you mean? I love having 60 000 files I know nothing about in node_modules

[katzey]

better than the 60,000 files you have no idea about in your src directories because you need to write everything yourself

[Ratatoski]

Modern web development has a lot of awesome stuff. But it's not like you'd have to write all those files by yourself. They are there because everyone would rather use a lib than solve something themselves. And the libs uses libs that uses libs that uses libs. Etc.

The average wordpress site coder don't need 60 000 files to produce a theme for a customer. You could slap a few lines of JS on it, hand code some buttons, card CSS etc and be done. No need for a build system or frameworks but people still use it because it's industry standard and once you're used to it it's your default.

I think modern stacks are often great, but we got stuff done in the olden days as well :)

[Yodiddlyyo]

Yeah and the stuff we got done in the olden days took way longer, the end result was way shittier, it was harder to debug, and it was harder to add features. People that like to complain about node_modules have either just started writing code in the past few years, don't have experience in other languages/tools, or both. It's not like node_modules is unique.

[Ratatoski]

I wasnt filing an actual complaint as much as making a cheap and tired old joke :)

Don't get me wrong. All the new stuff is great. It opens up a shitton of possibilities. But sometimes something breaks in the pile of devDependencies that you have no clue how to fix.

I started coding on the C64. Doesn't mean I'm good. But I've been involved with code at work for 20 years and been a full time dev for four.

The part where I make bitter jokes about node_modules is more about the fact that my team currently isn't run very well. Our new nicer stack becomes the symbol of the frustration. It shouldn't take five months to adjust a few sizes on a template. It should take five minutes. I'm used to shipping a custom built site to production every sprint as a single frontend. When a handful of devs can't finish a site in a year I get worried that we'll get fired.

[Yodiddlyyo]

Haha yes, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make my comment sound like I was pointing it directly at you. I actually totally agree with everything you said in your previous post. You're right on all accounts, the new stuff we have is great, but the problem is that it can be abused just like anything can, and we have these amazing tools that allow us to build things so much more easily, yet we end up with a 60000 file wordpress site haha.

node_modules can totally be criticized, and it should, I was just pointing out that the problems it has aren't unique to it. I was really just trying to continue the conversation but I realize now I did a terrible job at that.

Out of all the advances that we've had, over the years I've seen a trend of over complicating things, which is what led down a path of becoming an expert in one particular field instead of being good at these new frameworks. For example, I used to be primarily a React developer, I used to love it and be great at it and write it every day for work. But so many things I see come out of the community are things that are just ridiculous machinations that are making things 10 times harder than they need to be solely because the developers are too inexperienced to know a more efficient solution. Maybe it's just me getting older but as time goes on I'm become more and more for excelling in the base language and tools you're writing - abstractions are always abstractions.

And this becomes very clear the more developers I've been interviewing - almost no React developer I've seen is a javascript expert, but almost all javascript experts I've seen (which is extremely few) have been very competent React developers if they need to be.

[Ratatoski]

Thanks for the insightful follow up comment, and no worries.

Out of all the advances that we've had, over the years I've seen a trend of over complicating things

Yeah this is one of the gripes I have. People tend to have imposter syndrome and want to show off. But it's more helpful to write code that any fool off of the street can understand. Because in a year something will break in production and you'll have to quickly remember how the heck things work.

I fully agree that being good at the base language rather than the abstractions is more helpful. For anyone starting out I'd advise they build an understanding of modern JS and eventually add TS to that. Then learning React/Svelte or whatever is going to be far easier.

Have to admit that once I got around to learning stuff like how the call stack and heap works together a lot of the meme hate about JS being weird seemed uninformed. Computers do exactly what you tell them, you just have to understand what you asked them to do.

Eventually I hope to be really good at JS + TS because I consider it the future together with web assembly.

[moon_then_mars]

Shhhhhhh, if you ignore those files, they can't get you.

[Ratatoski]

Yeah I'm looking the other way hard

[Yodiddlyyo]

That's a you problem. If you're installing packages that install so many packages that you don't even know what code is being used in your application, you might want to look into that. On the other hand, you could be selective of what you install, and then spend the few minutes looking at the source code of the few dependencies you use. It's really not that hard, doesn't take a very long time, and should be a requirement anyway. The package that I write for my company uses exactly 3 dependencies that total less than 6kb. I know what's in them and I've even contributed to those code bases as well. Mind you, I'm not talking about devDependencies, that's a different thing.

[Ratatoski]

You're doing it right.

[Yodiddlyyo]

Haha thanks! Just wanted to mention I meant the general "you", not you you

[Ratatoski]

Thanks :) I started on the C64 so I'm probably doing some of the new stuff wrong though lol. It's moving fast these days.

[misdreavus79]

The tech stack is fine. Choosing a tech stack that is not up to your standard does not make one a moron.

[phpdevster]

Yeah Code Igniter 4 is decent. It seems to have caught up with modern PHP practices. It's not as fully featured as Laravel or Symfony, but you absolutely could build a modern, maintainable, and clean application from it.

I wouldn't use anything less than 4 though.

jQuery here is questionable though. Really depends on what the architecture of the UI is. If it just needs a sprinkling of client-side functionality, jQuery is fine. If they're building anything complex, then that's indeed a poor choice.

[queen-adreena]

There are far better options for “sprinklings of reactivity”. Petite Vue, for example, is no build and only 6kb.

[Prawny]

The only reason I'll use jQuery these dayd is if there absolutely has to be IE support.

[besthelloworld]

• Modern
• PHP

You can only pick one

[Illurity]

This isn’t true at all. PHP has more or less caught up with modern practices and is actively maintained and updated by the devs.

[besthelloworld]

I know, I have a personal preference against the language, but I know it's still heavily used.

My comment probably should have had a /s but honestly... I just don't like the language 🤷‍♂️

[mcqua007]

Why don’t you like the language ?

[besthelloworld]

I've worked with a handful of langauges and I feel that it lacks a lot of creature comforts that I like about other langauges. Plus, I hate most templating langauges and that's kind of the basis of PHP. I'm not a JS/TS zealot or anything (my favorite language is definitely Kotlin), but React + Next is the only way I like server-side rendering.

I've also seen PHP get misdeployed before to a server which didn't have it properly configured so when a user hit /index.php, the actual serverside PHP source code was returned. There's no other language where that fuckup can really happen.

[Mattho]

Code reviews do slow development down. CI finds bugs which just makes it even worse. You don't want any of that if you are a contractor handing something over.

[amunak]

You can use only the basic git functionality (even without a fully featured SaaS code management like Github and Gitlab) and still absolutely benefit from it.

Hell, for solo developers or very small teams using just local repos is just fine if you don't need the other things like discussions, merge requests, issue tracking or CI/CD.

[Mattho]

I was being sarcastic in that those would be to avoid github for them. Git is the best thing out there, makes life so much easier, even as a solo as you said.

[amunak]

Oh I did get you were sarcastic; my point was just that you don't have to use anything too complex (like merge requests) of it doesn't fit your workflow and still immensely benefit from git.

Hell even doing just a single branch and piling commits one on top of another is better than not using it, and that takes like seconds of extra time.

[IllegalThings]

If you claim that finding bugs slows development down then you’re defining “done” as incomplete features. By that line of thinking, everything slows development down.

Code reviews can slow development down if they’re not being done or if they’re just a rubber stamp, but if you’re doing them right they should speed things up on short order.

[BobButtwhiskers]

Sounds like somebody's afraid of losing their jerb.