The Web We Didn't Build
No single person understands everything that powers a website. The hardware, the software, the formats, the standards—it’s all layered work from countless contributors. As Rob Weychert points out, even a simple site rests on a mountain of technology that nobody built alone: the CMS, the image tools, the fonts, the browsers, the operating systems, the circuit boards.
That reality doesn’t mean we’re powerless. We can still choose which dependencies to invite into our projects, and which to leave out. Weychert suggests three questions to guide those choices:
- Complexity: How complex is it, who absorbs the cost of that complexity, and is that acceptable?
- Comprehensibility: Do I understand how it works, and if not, does that matter?
- Reliability: How consistently and for how long can I expect it to work?
Having a framework like this matters more than the specifics. Most developers operate on instinct, which is why npm install has become a punchline for solving problems by adding more problems. A deliberate checklist forces you to confront the trade-offs that are otherwise easy to ignore.
