Come for the Jamstack, Stay for the Dreamstack
Some say the Jamstack has come to save us all; save us from slow, insecure wads of spaghetti code, doddery tools, outdated practices, and deployment migraines.
It’s how the “modern web” gets built. It’s the FUTURE™!
Well, we agree! Unfortunately what the Jamstack giveth, the Jamstack taketh away. Now we have new wads of spaghetti code, byzantine solutions, and questionable practices often promoted by much larger engineering teams than any of us will ever be on. It’s getting nuts out there.
So we’re here to humbly suggest an alternate path. The Dreamstack, if you will. DREAM stands for Delightful Ruby Expressing APIs & Markup. Ruby is the greatest programming language ever devised for typical web development. From there we methodically employ time-tested techniques which effectively capitalize on evergreen browser technology. Shall we go on?
Whitefusion. Of the web, for the web, since 1997. And now here for you.
Sins of the “Modern” Web
It wasn’t your fault. You thought you were making the right call. “Use React! Everybody is now!” And so you did. “You should switch to TypeScript!” So you did. “Ditch append-only stylesheets and use Atomic CSS!” So you did. You loaded up all the latest hotness and spent hours / days / weeks yak shaving and retooling like a dutiful web developer in a heroic attempt to arrive at that mythical promised land where everything is componentized and isomorphic and strongly-typed and grand.
But you never arrived, because the promised land is a myth.
Here at Whitefusion, we call it HDD: Hype-Driven Development. An understandable yet avoidable overreliance on rapidly-evolving “new hotness” ecosystems has brought many a project to its knees. We’ve seen it firsthand. It’s why we’re not afraid to use what some have called “boring” technology—like Ruby, or vanilla CSS & JavaScript, or majestic monoliths.
It’s hardly boring! It just works. And it’s going to work as well three years from now as it does today.
Choose a stack everyone’s cuckoo for today…or swiftly ship a working product customers love tomorrow. It’s up to you!
Never Bet Against the Web Browser
The web is 30 years old. And there’s been many a time we’ve witnessed the desire to “hijack” the browser and make it do things it just wasn’t designed to do. From Java applets to Flash plugins to janky rich-client leviathans…these tendencies come and go in waves.
Most recently we’ve seen it with techniques that consider the browser merely a “build target” of a lofty cross-platform UI toolkit. Real talk: have you inspected the HTML on Twitter.com lately? It’s “div tag soup” with hundreds of inscrutable class names like r-18u37iz and css-901oao. That might pan out for a company the scale of Twitter…but for the rest of us, it’s a terrible idea.
Here’s what we think. Never bet against the web browser. Start with the basics, the holy trinity of web development: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—all in their proper place and benefiting from a minimalist design philosophy. Avoid undue complexity like the plague. Hesitate to add yet another build tool unless absolutely necessary. Use progressive enhancement techniques for users as well as developers. Spend your time focusing on what really matters, like accessibility, network performance, privacy, and long-term maintainability.
Unfucking the “Modern” Web, One Open Source Project at a Time
Sprawling codebases and poor UX might be the problem, but what’s the solution? So…about that Jamstack business:
The progenitor of all modern Jamstack tools is Jekyll. In the early half of the 2010s, Jekyll made static sites seem cool again and spearheaded a wave of tools and infrastructure which has taken the web development world by storm.
But the sad truth is that while the Jamstack has evolved, Jekyll hasn’t. And for a variety of reasons that doesn’t appear to be changing. Meanwhile, enthusiastic swaths of the web dev community have gravitated towards tools and methodologies which—while impressive in tech demos—are often surprisingly obtuse and can lead newbies into dangerous waters.
Along comes Bridgetown. Starting off with the technical foundation that made Jekyll sing, Bridgetown then takes things to a whole new level. It’s the Ruby-powered static site generator to fuel the next ten years of Dreamstack innovation. Combined with a prudent use of next-gen Ruby backend technology, it’s the path forward we’ve all been waiting for.
In addition to Bridgetown, Whitefusion is proud to endorse and support—and in some cases build—a slew of open source tools and educational destinations all with the aim of simplifying the modern web, promoting the delights of Ruby, and providing better alternatives to the status quo.
Ready to Join the Movement to Restore Speed, Simplicity, and Elegance to the Web?
If you’re tired of codebases which mushroom in complexity until they’re unmaintainable over the long term due to Hype-Driven Development…if you’re weary of practices which make the open web feel like a morass of numbers-driven “experiences” and subtle vendor lock-in…if you yearn for the days when a prudent employment of open web standards and “conceptual compression” could unlock delightful experiences outpacing much larger rivals…then join us.
Who is Whitefusion?
Where is Whitefusion? Why is Whitefusion? 😜
Hi, I’m Jared. I live and work in Portland, Oregon. I’m a web developer.
I’ve been at this a long time. A long, long time. I first got my start building websites in the 90s. I’ve seen entire subindustries of the web come and go. One day it’s J2EE, another day it’s Gatsby. There’s always somebody promoting flashy yet overengineered technology that’s so complicated it requires a slew of consultants ready to “fix” all the problems that inevitably arise.
I’m sick of it. Some days I’ve dreamed of retiring early if no sane alternative emerged!
Thankfully, I’m not the only one decrying the complexity of the modern web. Cooler heads are prevailing, praise be to Berners-Lee.
I’m a champion of the underdog: the solo dev, the small tight-knit team. I’m with the people who believe you can build great things with simple, easy-to-understand tools and a commitment to the greatest invention in the history of mankind: the open web. Join the resistance and together we shall accomplish great things. I can’t wait.
Save Time and Money! 😎
Our stance is clear. You shouldn’t need a Ph.D. in quantum-cloud-serverless-microservice-mechanics to deploy a web app. Not everyone is the next Twitter or Netflix, so why the hell would you build like they do?
Well-meaning engineers have adopted best practices and methodologies which benefit large corporations and applied them to small teams, or even a team of one. And then they wonder why it takes ten times longer to do ANYTHING. It’s like taking the blueprint for how to build a skyscraper, and then using that as an example for how to build a cottage. Total conceptual mismatch.
Enough is enough! It’s time to reclaim our sanity and just say no to out-of-control yak shaving and tooling tomfoolery. After all, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.