Windows Start Menu Is A Webpage

Backend developers live in a simpler world. Need to print "Hello World"? That's like 3 lines of code in most languages. But then they peek over at the frontend React ecosystem and witness the horror... To build a basic React app in 2023, you need: Node.js, npm/yarn/pnpm, webpack/vite/parcel, babel, ESLint, Prettier, TypeScript, a state management library, a CSS framework, a component library, testing tools, and probably 5 more dependencies just to display those magical words on screen. The face on the right perfectly captures that moment of existential dread when a backend dev realizes the npm install is still running after 5 minutes just to render two words. Pure frontend chaos.

Ah, the modern tech job posting—where companies want a single developer with the skills of seventeen specialists working for the price of one junior. The guy nails it perfectly. When recruiters list every technology under the sun—from three programming languages to multiple frameworks, databases, cloud services, DevOps tools, and system administration—they're basically asking for a unicorn who can replace their entire engineering team. After 15 years in the industry, I've seen job descriptions evolve from "Java developer" to "technical demigod who can single-handedly build, deploy, and maintain the entire digital infrastructure of a Fortune 500 company while also making coffee." And the best part? They'll still call it "entry-level" and offer you exposure instead of a proper salary.

The cosmic horror of discovering that the language you've been trying to escape has consumed the entire programming universe. JavaScript started as that quirky little browser language, then quietly infiltrated servers with Node.js, slithered into mobile apps with React Native, and now apparently runs the simulation we call reality. Future archaeologists will dig through the ruins of our civilization and find nothing but npm dependency trees going all the way down. The astronaut with the gun is just acknowledging what senior developers have known all along—resistance is futile, and we're all just writing JavaScript with extra steps.

Your elegant 20-line function at the top (the cat) vs the absolute monstrosity of dependencies it requires to run (the overloaded truck). That tiny NPM package you installed? Surprise! It just downloaded half the internet into your node_modules folder. Your hard drive is crying, your CI pipeline is timing out, and somewhere a data center is spinning up another server just to store your "hello world" app. And you're still missing that ONE dependency that actually matters.

Remember when the web was just static HTML? Those were simpler times. Now we're over here connecting Redux thunks to Suspense while our node_modules folder consumes half our hard drive space. JavaScript started as a tiny language to make form validation less painful, but somehow evolved into this monster where your shopping cart app needs 807 dependencies just to render "undefined apples please" to the screen. The best part? We've collectively convinced ourselves this is normal. Meanwhile, Flash—problematic as it was—is dead, but we've replaced it with an ecosystem so complex that half the developers using it don't understand what's happening under the hood. But hey, at least we can run JavaScript everywhere now. Even places it absolutely shouldn't be.

That 45-year-old senior developer who's been writing COBOL since the Clinton administration trying to fit in with the Gen Z junior devs who keep talking about "based" React hooks and "no cap" TypeScript features. Nothing says "I understand youth culture" like carrying a skateboard you've never ridden and wearing a red beanie in a 72-degree office.