I was active in web application development three times (1999, 2007 and circa 2010). Every time, I was horrified by the number of patches, workarounds and conditional code that were needed when doing "pure" web development. But at the same time, every application I developed was a little easier than the previous one, for four reasons.
First, the evolution of the web was pushing away the technologies that were the heaviest, most marginal and least standardized. I'm talking about ActiveX, Applets, Netscape frames, etc. The gradual elimination of these technologies was made possible by evolution of HTML and CSS towards more functionalities.
The second reason was the gradual standardization of key elements in web application rendering and execution. JavaScript behavior and functions, DOM structure and events, CSS element size calculation, etc. This standardization made it much easier to write code that "mostly" works cross browser.
Third, the modern web development frameworks and libraries. These contain the convoluted conditional code that you really don't want to write every time you want to implement something. Plus, once you've written your code, you don't have to completely revisit it every time a new browser version is released. I once wrote a nice website with drop-down menus which worked fine on Firefox and IE6 and IE7. Yay. But then, it was broken in the new version of IE. And then, Flash contents became "first layer" and opaque, and so the menus were rendered behind the contents. The amount of work I had to spend every six months to keep it running was not worth it. If I had used a popular framework maintained by the community (which were a little less common back then), it would have been less frustrating.
Fourth, mobile-friendly websites. The success of tablets and smartphones in the 2010s pushed web developers to have a simplified, more streamlined version of their websites available. Eventually, this had a major influence on the "PC" version of the same websites. Today, most websites have lots of functionality and interactions, but they're also simpler, the pages are shorter, there's less screen size conditional rendering, less overwhelming animations and extremely convoluted layouts.
All that to say... Web development is not as crazy and frustrating as it was just 10 years ago. One of the problems I'm seeing is that many designers still think in terms of fixed screen size, and full screen animations, and try to cram everything on the same page. These are really bad design patterns. Sure you want to dazzle you client with your HTML5 powess and ability to design gorgeous contents. But in the end, visitors and customers will be put off by imperfectly supported features, long load time, resource heavy rendering, clunky in-page scrolling, non-touchscreen-friendly buttons, and poor ergonomics in general.
Most sites that are a nightmare for the developer are also a nightmare for the users. In some cases, just reminding the designers they a load time should be under 2 seconds on a 4G connection might be sufficient to calm down their hubris.
First, the evolution of the web was pushing away the technologies that were the heaviest, most marginal and least standardized. I'm talking about ActiveX, Applets, Netscape frames, etc. The gradual elimination of these technologies was made possible by evolution of HTML and CSS towards more functionalities.
The second reason was the gradual standardization of key elements in web application rendering and execution. JavaScript behavior and functions, DOM structure and events, CSS element size calculation, etc. This standardization made it much easier to write code that "mostly" works cross browser.
Third, the modern web development frameworks and libraries. These contain the convoluted conditional code that you really don't want to write every time you want to implement something. Plus, once you've written your code, you don't have to completely revisit it every time a new browser version is released. I once wrote a nice website with drop-down menus which worked fine on Firefox and IE6 and IE7. Yay. But then, it was broken in the new version of IE. And then, Flash contents became "first layer" and opaque, and so the menus were rendered behind the contents. The amount of work I had to spend every six months to keep it running was not worth it. If I had used a popular framework maintained by the community (which were a little less common back then), it would have been less frustrating.
Fourth, mobile-friendly websites. The success of tablets and smartphones in the 2010s pushed web developers to have a simplified, more streamlined version of their websites available. Eventually, this had a major influence on the "PC" version of the same websites. Today, most websites have lots of functionality and interactions, but they're also simpler, the pages are shorter, there's less screen size conditional rendering, less overwhelming animations and extremely convoluted layouts.
All that to say... Web development is not as crazy and frustrating as it was just 10 years ago. One of the problems I'm seeing is that many designers still think in terms of fixed screen size, and full screen animations, and try to cram everything on the same page. These are really bad design patterns. Sure you want to dazzle you client with your HTML5 powess and ability to design gorgeous contents. But in the end, visitors and customers will be put off by imperfectly supported features, long load time, resource heavy rendering, clunky in-page scrolling, non-touchscreen-friendly buttons, and poor ergonomics in general.
Most sites that are a nightmare for the developer are also a nightmare for the users. In some cases, just reminding the designers they a load time should be under 2 seconds on a 4G connection might be sufficient to calm down their hubris.