* The increase in complexity is unavoidable as well as accidental (creep due to marketing). Some of it is necessary to address the increased sophistication of the web. Just compare what we can do today to what we used to do in 1996 with cgi and perl.
* It is not that native GUI libraries like Qt or SDL or GTK are super easy. GUI are event driven and composed and need to be in sync with the user wishes and as such have a programming model that is different from a top to down execution of instructions.
* The biggest challenge with the current state of front end development though is that there are no standards and no stability on a YoY basis. What I learned to do with PHP in 2005 is still valid. I can still use those tricks and whip something useful. What I learned to do with tables in mysql 3.x is still useful with mysql 8.x. However the world of Javascript frameworks is one of shifting sand.
What I learned with Javascript framework X.1 will be obsoleted by X.2 and will be obsoleted by X.3. No guarantees for time investment is challenge #1. angular 1.x -> 2.x, Vue 2.x -> 3.x are some examples that come to mind. Think of all the wasted effort. That is the killer. Humans are good at making peace with whatever crap is thrown at them. I do not think technology is the reason here. It has more to do with hype cycles and trying to catch developer's attention in a competitive market with new buzzwords.
* There is a lack of simple tools like what visual basic used to do. Sure, everything is async and we are in an event driven world but frameworks could have provided a common core to enable simple use cases. bootstrap library is a case in point. I can get decent results with bootstrap without knowing the intricacies of css. However I am hard pressed to find a suitable Javascript framework.
* It is not that native GUI libraries like Qt or SDL or GTK are super easy. GUI are event driven and composed and need to be in sync with the user wishes and as such have a programming model that is different from a top to down execution of instructions.
* The biggest challenge with the current state of front end development though is that there are no standards and no stability on a YoY basis. What I learned to do with PHP in 2005 is still valid. I can still use those tricks and whip something useful. What I learned to do with tables in mysql 3.x is still useful with mysql 8.x. However the world of Javascript frameworks is one of shifting sand.
What I learned with Javascript framework X.1 will be obsoleted by X.2 and will be obsoleted by X.3. No guarantees for time investment is challenge #1. angular 1.x -> 2.x, Vue 2.x -> 3.x are some examples that come to mind. Think of all the wasted effort. That is the killer. Humans are good at making peace with whatever crap is thrown at them. I do not think technology is the reason here. It has more to do with hype cycles and trying to catch developer's attention in a competitive market with new buzzwords.
* There is a lack of simple tools like what visual basic used to do. Sure, everything is async and we are in an event driven world but frameworks could have provided a common core to enable simple use cases. bootstrap library is a case in point. I can get decent results with bootstrap without knowing the intricacies of css. However I am hard pressed to find a suitable Javascript framework.