You can't really compare "web development" to "application development". I think it's more fair to compare a single web framework with a single native framework. The web ecosystem of frameworks is much larger, meaning there are far more options, much more to adapt to if changing projects. Switching from a well-written iOS codebase to a well-written Android codebase would be no different then switching to a well-written React codebase.
> I've been doing some web development on a fairly long-lived and large code-base
Perhaps it's just not a well written codebase. It's extremely easy to write bad code for web, where perhaps it's slightly harder to do for native development (although still very easily possible of course). It's also very possible to write good maintainable code for both as well.
> I'm not even talking about the fact that everything has to be stateless
It doesn't have to be stateless. Take a look at React.
> just the fact that it really feels like there's no consistent way to do anything
That's pretty much the same with application development. Perhaps not as much for Android/iOS themselves since there is basically only one option for each of those. Even within those there are many many ways of doing everything. It's up to everyone working on the codebase to keep things sane. That's no different with web development.
> I've been doing some web development on a fairly long-lived and large code-base
Perhaps it's just not a well written codebase. It's extremely easy to write bad code for web, where perhaps it's slightly harder to do for native development (although still very easily possible of course). It's also very possible to write good maintainable code for both as well.
> I'm not even talking about the fact that everything has to be stateless
It doesn't have to be stateless. Take a look at React.
> just the fact that it really feels like there's no consistent way to do anything
That's pretty much the same with application development. Perhaps not as much for Android/iOS themselves since there is basically only one option for each of those. Even within those there are many many ways of doing everything. It's up to everyone working on the codebase to keep things sane. That's no different with web development.