The Web has been a dominant platform for over twenty years, but over that time code quality has been surprisingly low. An entire generation of developers came up through the ranks with a working understanding that front-end code was hard to write well, and harder to maintain over time. How did we get here, and how can we make positive changes towards quality in our browser code?

This new series is called "Clean Code in the Browser" and focuses on improving the code quality of our front-end code. In this first episode we look at how we got into this mess in the first place:

We start by exploring common pitfalls and patterns that lead to failure in Web projects.

Next, we go back through a brief history of quality on the Web since its inception, analyzing the forces that set the stage for poor code quality in front-end code.

Once we've looked at the historical forces, we move on to cultural forces. We talk about the division between front-end and back-end developers and how these rifts reinforce cultures where quality is not valued.

Finally, we will look at Client-Server architecture and how its role in the Web has shifted over the last 50 years. These changes have introduced architectural challenges to Web developers and make it more difficult to maintain best practices.