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I have an ASP.NET Core Razor Pages project, some JavaScript libraries, some CSS and some SCSS.
In the past I've used Gulp to transpile and minify/uglify my front-end resources, but I understood Webpack is the latest rage.
I never liked Gulp all that much anyway so I find me a nice blog on setting up Webpack and all is fine.
Except that jQuery is now undefined.
Lots of Googling and apparently I need something like this.
import $ from 'jquery/dist/jquery';
window.jQuery = $;
window.$ = $;
import 'bootstrap';
import '@fortawesome/fontawesome-free';
import Vue from 'vue/dist/vue'; So that looks like four different methods to get the same thing.
Especially the jQuery thing was somehow hard to find.
It has something to do with jQuery being an old package that doesn't use the latest standards.
But it gets better.
Everything works now, except if I want my JavaScript and CSS in separate files.
Lots of Googling later and I've found some plugins that I need.
It seems kind of impossible to generate separate files, but I got it working if I'm willing to accept an extra JavaScript file that's generated with my CSS file.
I even got in the SCSS transpiler, uglyfier and minifiers.
For some reason the 'style-loader' that everyone seems to use for CSS files generates JavaScript.
After lots of Googling I even got rid of all the overhead Webpack generates.
The default code generation actually makes heavy use of eval("...") 
But I've got all of that out of the way, so that's a win.
Except that whenever I make a change to any JavaScript or (S)CSS I need to run "npm run build" to build the entire frigging thing again!
Luckily, I found some .NET middleware that watches your files and run npm build automatically if anything changes.
Well tough luck because that's deprecated and no good alternative is offered.
Now I have to install a Webpack server, if I want to get serious with Vue I need to install a Vue server as well.
I'll probably revert to just using my original JavaScript files in development mode.
This sh*t cost me hours to set up and development just became harder.
The documentation is horrible and all over the place.
For every little thing I need I have to install a new npm library that comes with a gazillion dependencies (actually, I've got 576 folder in my node_modules for a total of just over 90 MB).
Just when you think you've got it, you bump into some problem and you need an extra package or, if you're unlucky, completely replace the one you're using and start over.
WHY THE HELL IS WEBPACK SO POPULAR!?
Unfortunately, this was the same reason that I didn't like Gulp and that I don't like those front-end testing frameworks or any front-end work for that matter.
Front-end is a mess and despite (or because) all the tooling it's not getting any better 
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I've never done web development, but I get the sense that it's often a mishmash of things that could be described as, "You're in a maze of twisty little passages, most of them filled with knee-deep shite."
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So true.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Me neither, and this is why
I don't have the time to learn some new fangled library every week, and then try to figure out how to make it work, or why it stopped working.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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Jep, that's how it is, especially JavaScript (front and back-end)
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Greg Utas wrote: I've never done web development, but I get the sense that it's often a mishmash of things that could be described as, "You're in a maze of twisty little passages, most of them filled with knee-deep shite."
I love the naive optimism of people who've never done webcrap. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Chin-deep?
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ominous sounding bathysphere noises
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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There's a reason I've been excited to be doing a mobile project at 50% (hopefully for the next 8-10 months) even though it's being written in Java instead of our normal Xamarin (3rd party dependencies) or Kotlin (short deadline for initial milestone meant our lead didn't want to risk a slow rampup).
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Walk North <enter>
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, most of them filled with knee-deep shite."
Walk North <enter>
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, most of them filled with knee-deep shite."
...
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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So you never played Adventure (the original version)?
If you had, you would have known that to the north, "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike".
Further north, "You are in a maze of twisting little passages, all alike".
To the west of that, "You are in a little maze of twisting passages, all alike".
Then go south, and "You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all alike".
Further south, "You are in a twisty little maze of passages, all alike".
Go west, and "You are in a little maze passages, all twist, all alike".
Then if you again go west you are back to where "You are in a maze of twisty little passages" - the passages are twisting. Or twisty, if you prefer. And they are all alike. In this context, most of them are probably filled with knee-deep shite, although that wasn't the case in the original Adventure.
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"WinForms". It works. Predictable. No Javascript-dependencies.
Just saying, if you need a grunt that gets results you can hire me. I don't know Gulp, just delivering results; and I determine what is right, not the client.
And yes; I was that idiot you saw at that show. If we meet again, I pay for a vegan beer.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: if you need a grunt that gets results
I said Webpack, not Grunt: The JavaScript Task Runner[^] 
WinForms is hardly a good choice these days.
Its age is really beginning to show.
Don't get me wrong, I love WinForms (well, most of it, the DataGridView kind of ruins it).
I have it running at one customer, but they need support for Google Maps.
The previous programmer got it working using the WebBrowser control, but that uses IE and is no longer supported.
I was able to migrate to some Chromium based control, but developing and debugging it is still a pain.
Some things really are simpler in a web app.
Eddy Vluggen wrote: And yes; I was that idiot you saw at that show.
I haven't seen any shows lately, but I already figured you were an idiot
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One of the reasons I have such disdain for npm, webpack, and all the other aspects of the web-sphere, is exactly many of the issues you've mentioned - absurd amounts of dependencies, lack of "how to" documentation, and so forth. And forget getting all that tooling to work in Visual Studio, my favorite IDE / debugger tool. Visual Code sucks - it keeps changing with every new release, and I'm sick of that and the half-assed plugins that only half work.
I've come to love web development, but only in the context of, don't use anything someone else wrote unless absolutely necessary. So I have a very small suite of third party libraries I use:
sometimes Bootstrap
sometimes jqWidgets
never jQuery (except that the above to require it)
no third party "MV[x]" framework
no "pollute my HTML with declarative code" engines, so no Angular, no Vue, no shyte.
um, nothing else really.
and everything is coded in TypeScript, and I can debug happily either in the Chrome console or right in Visual Studio.
As usual, I rebel. I am not a lemming. I will not leap of the cliff that everyone else appears to be leaping off of.
And OMG, "eval"???
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We seem to come from rather different worlds, but this is one reason I write pure C++ with as few dependencies on other things as possible. I like most of the STL, but there's a lot of shite out there.
I even have a black Stetson, a going-away present from a former team. Hi y'all if any of you are reading this. Some of them still work on the product almost 20 years later.
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I'm partial to QT because it supplies OS level primitives remaining mostly cross-platform if the project is developed well. Otherwise, as little external dependencies as strictly necessary.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Phew.. Blazor WebAssembly arrived just in time to save us! 
Better yet, some of the Blazor work is retrofitted in WinUI as MVA, exciting time! 
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Saw that in the Build presentations. The creator of DNN has already jumped on board with a Blazor framework named oqtane. Looked at it but didn't bite. Seems like it is not quite ready for prime time, maybe close.
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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I'll wait for that stuff to mature a bit before I use it in production code 
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You're such a web, javascript puddle, html 5, css, jquery, react, vue lover!
Me, I'll jump right into it!
I resisted doing web dev as much as I could... But the wave finally caught me anyway 
I see Blazor as my savior! Finally a beautiful and sensible and performant technology! Nobody will stop me using it!
Actually.. I should start investigating now how easy it is to sneak in some Blazor tech into an existing website...  
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Super Lloyd wrote: Me, I'll jump right into it!
You're such an incompatible browser, breaking API changes, undocumented APIs, no Google results lover! 
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Sander Rossel wrote: I'll wait for that stuff to mature a bit before I use it in production code
In the entire history of web development you may be the first person to have ever said this!
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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