Trying To Fix The Web Dev: Part 1, The Issue.

Some of us remember the "old" days when web development was simple.

PHP, two types of forms, and some jQuery for the magic to happen (AJAX hit like using ChatGPT the first time).

And it was pretty reliable too, despite everybody managing servers themselves (I still do btw, using vim).

React.js Happened.

Angular happened first, but I skipped that.

So, React felt like a new era was coming – now you could write and embed highly interactive mini-apps.

Of course, that was possible before, but React enforced component architecture with props propagation and manageable component state – back then, I (20 y.o., 70% PHP monkey, 30% jQuery enjoyer) could not even think about something like this, and it gave me superpowers.

BTW, I think micro apps with little to no back-end interaction are the perfect use case for front-end frameworks. Perhaps because that was what they were actually designed for, or maybe because I don't fully understand the world.

Nowadays.

Oh boy. I am CTO and co-owner of an international hardware development + production company (DH + EMS).

How I got there – different story. But what’s important: I’ve built many things with my teams.

From an Electron-based manufacturing control & automation system, to light show drone firmware with a custom UDP swarm control protocol (I wrote the core myself in Rust – I [spoiler] was a bad manager), to actual hardware.

I even had my own JDSL, which powered [spoiler] server-driven production operator terminals — so you could deploy new workstations just by describing the execution process in JSON. It was so bad and somehow surprisingly awesome.

BUT every freaking time I had to deal with the web during this career period, it caused me pain.

The Issue.

I don't want to yell about JS and its ecosystem. Everybody’s already doing that.

I think there is something much fundamental:

Business logic has migrated to the browser.

Take a look:

Ok, for real:

It would be ignorant to claim the old approach fits the modern web. Sites built like that often feel outdated, lack features and the UX sucks.

Why is Business Logic In the Browser an Issue?

You probably already felt that something was wrong. Here are my anti-highlights:

#1 Huge Deal: Front-end dictates API access.

The data you need to read or write conditionally depends on business logic, and so it is reflected in the UI flow.

That means you have to reflect the UI flow in API access schemas, which operate in a completely different dimension.

Such a unified control schema cannot exist.

That’s arguable. And I can object to myself here, often, just role-based is good enough. Ok, role-based with some extra configurable properties. Ok, role-based with some properties and runtime conditions. Ok, with a bunch of architectural nightmare code – 100% doable.

For straightforward logic applications, that’s not a big deal.

However, if you’re entering the B2B space with control panels, a bit of business process automation (not to mention ERP), it's going to be rough.

Or follow the vibe™ and don’t care. Rely on Elusive Joe security strategy and expose your whole db.

Boring: 84% reported experiencing at least one API‑related security incident in the past year

#2 Opinion: Thick Client.

This largely depends on your industry and the complexity of your app's functionality.

Building the complex logic of your service on top of a million lines of JS dependencies to be executed in the browser doesn't feel right.

JavaScript is the best language in the world. Or how else do you explain that something made for SCRIPTING now powers the web?

But seriously. It's genius, just the application seems narrower.

I think that too much freedom in approaching deeper-than-surface-level tasks is not good (why I love Rust). JS/TS provides hallucination-level abstraction tooling.

#3 Reality: Teams synchronization and higher button cost.

That depends on the size of your team or company. I worked in small to medium-sized companies, where adding basic functionality is usually a low-cost operation.

However, I’m hearing stories from my corporate friends all the time about how their work and releases are blocked by multi-level endpoint approval processes (reason #1) and teams syncing (everybody has their priorities).

Anyway, with the growth, an increase in feature cost is unavoidable.

But that makes the fact that you need to do the same thing in two different projections (app and API) even more frustrating.

It’s Just Skill Issues.

Maybe. And I am an impostor.
So don’t subscribe and miss Part 2: The Solution (it's going to be technical)