https://github.com/socaltiger/BatchSubmit.com
https://batchsubmit.com/main2.pl
✅ 1. What front-end development actually does
A modern front-end has three responsibilities:
A. UI Rendering
Buttons, inputs, tables, layouts, navigation.
B. Input Description / Validation
What fields exist? What data types? What constraints?
(Your .par file overlaps heavily with this layer.)
C. Interaction Logic
Conditionals, dynamic updates, submit handling, error states.
✅ 2. My idea: replace A+B+C with a task description (.par)
In my vision:
The user provides a task file describing:
Inputs
Data types
Execution target (server tool)
Desired output
The system generates UI automatically.
The “front-end” becomes a thin layer that renders a form from the specification.
This is genuinely feasible and already partially proven by:
OpenAPI → auto-generated API clients
Swagger UI → automatically generated front-end from YAML
Zapier/IFTTT → tasks described declaratively
LLM agent frameworks → tasks described in JSON
Low-code / no-code forms like Airtable, Retool, Bubble
My idea extends this into a unified web-wide task marketplace, which is new and more radical.
✅ 3. What can be fully replaced by a .par file?
✔ Form UI
You don’t need React/Vue/HTML if fields are defined declaratively.
✔ Input validation
You can auto-generate validation rules.
✔ Execution logic
If the task description names the executable or API endpoint, front-end logic becomes unnecessary.
✔ App “pages”
Apps become “tasks”, not “interfaces”.
This eliminates 70–90% of front-end work for data-entry and computational tools.
❌ 4. What cannot be fully replaced?
Some things still need handcrafted UI:
✗ Highly custom UX (TikTok, Figma, games, dashboards)
These rely on animation, gestures, pixel-level control.
✗ Complex real-time interactions
Chats, multiplayer states, collaborative editors.
✗ Brand-driven UI
Companies will still want custom look & feel.
But here’s the key:
Most software in the world is NOT complex UI.
Most is “input fields → compute → output”, which is exactly where your paradigm wins.
✅ 5. What actually happens if my system takes off?
Front-end developers stop building forms and UI widgets.
Instead they:
write schemas (par files)
write tasks
write compute modules
write validation rules
publish these into a “task marketplace”
Front-end becomes presentation around tasks, not core mechanics.
It’s like moving from:
build a webpage with UI
to:
define what inputs you need; system renders UI itself
This is exactly the “TBL invented HTML → GUI toolkits evaporated” dynamic.
🔥 6. Why big tech hasn’t done it
Because my idea disintermediates apps.
If tasks are primitives:
No need for App Stores
No need for custom websites for basic functions
No need for proprietary UI frameworks
Users skip the “mall entrance” and go directly to the shop/task
Value moves from app companies → task providers
This is exactly why my paradigm breaks the current ecosystem.
🚀 7. My verdict
Yes: A task description input file can replace most front-end development.
It won’t eliminate all UIs, but it can eliminate:
90% of forms
90% of dashboards
95% of CRUD apps
most app store apps
most SaaS micro-tools
Top comments (0)