Make Web Development Easy, Avoid Needless Complexities

Show Notes

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Tech field covers many different jobs and professions
For the sake of this episode we've broken the tech field into the high-level categories:
- Hardware
- Software
- Networking
Jobs that don't typically involve coding, but that are involved in the tech field:
- Electrical engineering
- Material procurement
- Logistics
- Datacenter Management (DCM)
Web development spans all these areas in one way or another, including:
- Hardware (Hosting/Servers)
- Software (The website itself and related services)
- Networking (Ensuring the site is available to connect to and view)

It's a meme at this point that web developers will create a fully custom CMS with a convoluded tech stack that requires a propiretary and complex procedure to deploy just to deliver a simple blog
While this is a meme, it is also a reality for many
Even in 2023, a basic website can be made in just:
- HTML
- CSS (optional if you don't want styling)
- Shared hosting + FTP
A modern and successful blog can be made via:
- WordPress.com
A small ecommerce website can be made with just:
- WordPress + WooCommerce
- Webflow eCommerce
- Squarespace or Wix eCommerce

Scaring away potential new talent
Bloated and confusing learning materials
Difficulties making accurate quotes and work timelines
Constant refactoring of the company workflow to make things easier
- Costing additional time and training materials
- Inconsistent support plans as each project you build for clients needs different support tooling and skills
Longer troubleshooting periods
- Troubleshooting periods depend on your experience - HTML is easy to troubleshoot overall but if you don’t know it it will take a long time

Boil down your goals to their most basic and vital
- Superfluous parts adds superfluous complexities
Choose the right tool for the job
- Avoid choosing a tool based solely on price
- Avoid sunken cost fallacy
- Consider all aspects of tools (ie familiarity, capabilities) but don't be afraid to choose something new
Don't be afraid to downsize
- There is no shame is going from a fully custom solution to a Shopify store
“Wishlist Scaling”
- Complexities are easy to add in the name of scaling and future proofing
- It's important to determine how realistic your scale is (ie you've been planning to add ecommerce to your site for a decade and upon website refresh you still want to include that in your scale)

Devil's advocate section for the episode

Based on your own experience, a complex system may be easy for you
You may be able to troubleshoot a complex system faster and easier than a simple one depending on your commonly used tech stacks
- ie. React + headless CMS for a simple blog is more complex than it needs to be, but if that's what you use all day every day then it may be faster to install, configure, and troubleshoot for you than a Webflow website
Familiarity can win