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Ask HN: What's the next big step in the evolution of web applications?

by thesurlydev on 7/13/24, 6:58 PM with 11 comments

Today there seems to be two paths towards creating a "modern" full-stack web application. One is to use something like Next.js for both backend and frontend. The second path is to have a mix of a Javascript framework (React/Next.js, Vue, etc.) and one or more microservices serving API endpoints.

What's the next big step in the evolution of web apps? Perhaps, one which allows you to have a more homogenous development experience while still retaining a lot of the benefits you get from one of the previously mentioned paths.

Is there a new technology stack that accomplishes a superior developer experience AND user experience?

  • by dtagames on 7/14/24, 5:10 AM

    The next thing in user interfaces is combining LLMs with GUIs to create a flexible interface that isn't fully defined in advance but works with the user to adapt to their needs. This is a total departure from the pixel-copying design methods we have today and there is no tooling yet for designing such an interface.

    In a few years time, we'll expect all applications to have LLM inputs and full natural language understanding in addition to their menus and buttons, just like we expect all software today to make use of the internet where before, none did.

  • by meiraleal on 7/13/24, 8:19 PM

    I think we will see more frameworks that uses only ES modules and don't new a bundler/compile step, improving a lot the dev experience.

  • by kindofabigdeal on 7/13/24, 7:06 PM

    I hope in the future we have more of flutter and flutter like frameworks and less of the web, it'd be a little more cost effective as it'd reduce server costs and it'd lessen the effect of cloud companies on climate change.

  • by austin-cheney on 7/14/24, 11:25 AM

    The next big step in the web will be economic. It has gotten far too expensive.

    Back when I started learning this stuff the idea was for ignorant moms and pops to quickly markup some text to create web pages. Now you need a mountain of technology thousands of times larger and more complex than people putting people on the moon just to put text on screen using layers of unnecessary bullshit like Next and React. WTF?

    It’s only a matter of time before absolutely everyone, except for web developers, start looking at alternatives. Seriously, if the only goals are putting text on screen and handling user interactions both employers, hobbyists, and moms/pops going to consider anything else that costs less a million per year, minimum, for a technology team who delivers so incredibly slowly.

  • by spartanatreyu on 7/17/24, 7:04 AM

    The next big step is dependent on JS language/runtime features. Specifically the Record-Tuple proposal (https://github.com/tc39/proposal-record-tuple)

    TL;DR: It's a way to designate data as being immutable.

    JS doesn't currently have a good way to do this, so everything built for it tries to assume that data hasn't changed since it was last set. This leads to headaches for developers and wasted cycles for runtimes.

    When JS has a proper way to make data immutable, it makes it easier for libraries/frameworks to make guarantees about the underlying data and makes it possible for runtimes to better optimize code.

  • by codegeek on 7/14/24, 7:07 PM

    I wish Web App could be built in one single language as I despise JS. But for that, browsers need to be created differently.