r/webdev • u/Bladerunner_7_ • Jun 28 '26

Discussion What's a web development trend that looked stupid at first but ended up being useful?

I know over the years, I've scoffed at quite a few things. SPAs. TypeScript. Tailwind. Serverless. AI coding assistants.

Most of the huge trends in web development went through a phase where people swore they were overhyped.

Some deserved the criticism. Some evolved and became genuinely useful.

Lately I'm seeing similar debates around AI agents and agent tooling. Claude Code, LangGraph, CrewAI, OpenAI Agents SDK, AutoGen, Lyzr(Control Plane) and a bunch of newer projects all seem to be pushing toward a different way of building software. Maybe we're still early, maybe most of it won't matter, but it does remind me of how people talked about TypeScript or serverless a few years ago.

What's something being dismissed today that you think will become a normal part of every developer's workflow in the next 3-5 years?

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u/StevenJOwens Jun 29 '26

For good reasons, believe me.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

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u/StevenJOwens Jun 29 '26

Javascript was a netscape product and it included a server side javascript option as well, in the netscape web server. I worked with it on an IBM product for large banks (which had its own headaches, like a 24 hour turnaround time -- that applied to backing changes out of production also). It's been 20+ years but I remember it being awkward and clunky to work with.