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"Web programming is difficult in a different way than say, compiler construction or kernel programming... Web programming is mad due to integration issues and malicious users"

To me, web programming isn't as well-defined as most programming topics, and requires competency in too many domain-specific areas for one person to master all of it.

Assuming you know what you want your language/web site to look like, compare..

Writing a parser generator, parsing the tree, optimizing the instructions, generating the instructions, regression testing, benchmarking

with..

Designing a database schema, maintaining HTML/CSS, making a pretty design, writing Javascript, safely deploying, configuring web servers, generating test environments for all browser/OS combinations, doing usability testing, and making sure you're not giving away any of your users' data.

A lot of the compiler-writing phases are yes/no (language design aside), and a lot of the web phases can't be answered easily. E.G. "Is our login system secure?" "Well, probably... Dave's pretty good with this stuff and he thinks it is."



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