Return of the “Web Jedi”- rekindle my web development fire

I started web development in the ’90s. Plain HTML and JavaScript, some images and perhaps a little bit of CSS. Static websites. I have made quite a journey since those days. And then about a decade ago I got lost. I had gone through Java Servlets, JSPs (Java Server Pages) and Java Server Faces (JSF). I had embraced AJAX (in fact, I had “invented” it myself using background posts of IFRAMEs before it was even called AJAX). Full focus on server side UI development. Then HTML5 started happening, The web browser evolved into a monster — a desktop application server with tremendous and ever increasing capabilities, just check out the wealth of browser APIs available today.

Rich JavaScript frameworks appeared, starting with AngularJS. And I lost touch. I heard about single page applications (SPA) and the rise of the M-V-VM architecture. TypeScript appeared, build tools such as WebPack and later Vite(JS) captured audiences. Of course the term “reactive” popped up — in several contexts. But I was out of it.

The next picture shows what I have been doing — and what was going on in the world of web development (obviously by no means an exhaustive list — where are Cordova and React Native for example? or Flutter

This shows what I have been doing regarding web development — and what was going on in the world of web development (obviously by no means an exhaustive list

I have made several attempts to embrace Angular and React — but it did not really click. I was busy doing many other things and I had never impressed anyone with my user interface design skills so it did not seem like a great loss. And after HelloWorld, these frameworks did not seem intuitive. However, to be able to put a face on my business logic, to prototype my ideas and to be able to spar with my colleagues who are good at this has been my desire to many years.

And now I have finally taken the plunge. After hearing many good things about Vue 3 I decided to make another effort to learn how to develop web applications as it is done today.

The good news: I like it! (the not so good news: I find this addictive!)

Many of the things I learned with HTML and JavaScript and CSS still are valid. And much of what I learned with JavaServerFaces — a server side UI Component framework — is easily translated to the way Vue works with components and with model bindings. The reactivity in Vue applications is quite…