I did webdev back in 2006, I started relearning it in 2010.
The problems you had in 2006 are still problems you have in 2010. IE6, browser fragmentation, HTTP, JavaScript.
I would argue that today you have TOO MUCH choice. You have people endlessly debating whether to learn Ruby or Python (but never PHP), whether HTML5 will replace Flash (sorta, kinda), whether to use -moz CSS properties and so on.
Web development has solved distribution and possibly piracy and not much else. Still struggling on mobile, still difficult to develop cross-platform, still hasn't replaced anything of importance as preached for the last three years.
The web is becoming the ultimate blub.
I think the author is in the honeymoon phase when it comes to the web and open-source. Both are important, but they aren't going to win/kill/destroy the alternatives.
Or to put it another way: The web doesn't have any "Right Things." It has a whole lot of "Worse is Betters" that are flawed, immature or inadequate, and if you really try to push them to their limits, you're walking into a minefield.
Maybe in another 5 years, we'll see things calm down again, but it really is a confusing software landscape these days.
Let's give the web at least one Right Thing(tm): the distribution model. The old days of asking "how do I get these updates out to every node of my gargantuan organization's network every Monday?" are so gone that we forget to put this in the tradeoff list.
But comparing it to desktop apps, mobile apps or console games, I would still say that web development has made it easier to do cross-platform development.
Sure you've got to support IE6 (mainly if you do enterprise stuff), but in desktop apps you have MacOS, Win7, WinXP, all Linux flavours. You can't make a cross-platform game (handheld or console). Mobile apps are divided in iOS, Android and probably WinMo7, webOS, RIM, ...
The problems you had in 2006 are still problems you have in 2010. IE6, browser fragmentation, HTTP, JavaScript. I would argue that today you have TOO MUCH choice. You have people endlessly debating whether to learn Ruby or Python (but never PHP), whether HTML5 will replace Flash (sorta, kinda), whether to use -moz CSS properties and so on.
Web development has solved distribution and possibly piracy and not much else. Still struggling on mobile, still difficult to develop cross-platform, still hasn't replaced anything of importance as preached for the last three years. The web is becoming the ultimate blub.
I think the author is in the honeymoon phase when it comes to the web and open-source. Both are important, but they aren't going to win/kill/destroy the alternatives.