Challenges for web developers

I originally wrote this to articulate the challenges of the wider developer ecosystem that my team (Chrome and Web Developer Relations) needs to address so that we can help the industry thrive, so that we can help more people build on the web, and to help developers build experiences that more people love to use.

After sharing the Web and Chrome DevRel manifesto I wanted to keep up the pace of sharing my thoughts on some of the challenges that we want to help developers solve.

I didn't actually ship this article, but now that I've had some time and it's the new year I thought it would be a good time to actually share this.

Understanding the challenges that developers face every day helps me work out how we can change the way we work to help as many developers as possible.

I would love your feedback. Am I wrong? Do you see any broader ecosystem issues that I have missed?

I will be making deeper articles out of many of these issues.

Web Development is easy to start, but hard to make progress and master

Developers are getting excited about PWA, but they can be hard to build and hard to do well

It is too hard to build a well-functioning experience (UI/UX)

It's too hard to build a fast site

It is too hard to build a secure site

Businesses and Developers don't know why they should "Web"

The web is lumpy and causes developers a lot of pain

The web is a vibrant ecosystem, but noisy

The web is global

Updates

Edit 1 (23-Jan-2018): Adding a note at the top of the page.

Edit 2 (28-Jan-2018): Cleaning up some bits.

I lead the Chrome Developer Relations team at Google.

We want people to have the best experience possible on the web without having to install a native app or produce content in a walled garden.

Our team tries to make it easier for developers to build on the web by supporting every Chrome release, creating great content to support developers on web.dev, contributing to MDN, helping to improve browser compatibility, and some of the best developer tools like Lighthouse, Workbox, Squoosh to name just a few.

I love to learn about what you are building, and how I can help with Chrome or Web development in general, so if you want to chat with me directly, please feel free to book a consultation.

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