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It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

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Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#281

Post by pmontra »

graycat wrote: post #246
donatj wrote: post #66

I don't think that's remotely true if you keep the responsive web app simple. YNGNI and KISS and what not. I've been doing this for over ten years. In that time I've seen large web applications built for under 4k; I've also seen massively overbuilt simple applications go for 50k+. It comes down to often how needlessly complex you make the stack. If you stick with solid simple guaranteed tech instead of cutting edge y…

I hope you are correct. For my startup, I've assumed you are correct. Since my startup is my first Web site, I'm no expert in the issues in the OP here. So, HELP! Guys here who know more than I do about Web apps on different Web browsers on different client devices, which is nearly everyone on HN, help me out here -- am I on or off track? Where am I going wrong? So, what I've built is just a Web site ( Web app ). For…

Given the karma and the comments of the previous years I think you're being somewhat ironic. 400,000 bits, table layout and all the rest, a 1997 startup? :-)

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#282

Post by r2dnb »

briandear wrote: post #85
54mf wrote: post #23

"You want mobile notifications? Sure, but not on mobile Safari." You can do this with PhoneGap. "Multiple line ellipsis? Sure, but only on webkit." Okay, yeah, this sucks. "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." This is probably your fault. "We fix a layout bug on Safari and break something on Edge." This is probably your fault. "We change font size on Chrome and now all you can see on Firefox is…

PhoneGap? I thought the point was the original author didn't want to ship shit. PhoneGap apps are generally terrible. PhoneGap is the preferred solution for CIOs that want to save money but end up delivering a glitchy crap product. JavaScript isn't the catch all savior many JS people seem to think it is. CSS and JS animations are children's toys compared to Metal on iOS. You can make a far more beautiful and smooth e…

The issue with your comment is that it is based on the idea that supporting a platform is the goal. As per your value metrics, the more platform-rich the experience is, the better it is.

This is however not how business works and not how businesses work because it is not what they need. What they need is to transfer value to move their business forward. It is also the only thing they (should) want.

Full Android or iOS support is not what smart business leaders aim, I would tend to say it is the opposite.

I don't care for 1 second about the Metal/Swift you talk about when I can have people get their credit card out with an HTML page without CSS.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#283

Post by ehnto »

tracker1 wrote: post #244
elliotec wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practice sounds like exactly what OP is trying to avoid. Also, you're talking about small apps. And also, webpack is the most incomprehensible waste of time that I've ever encountered in development. No hyperbole.

My point was that if you're keeping up on your tooling knowledge, it isn't so hard to bang out something quick/small. If you aren't doing it as often, then the difference is smaller in terms of impact to use newer tooling. Regarding webpack, there aren't wholly better options yet... I'm sure there will be, but for now, it's pretty nice.

I have been doing front end for a good 8 years now, and I stopped finding benefit in most of the newer tools since Gulp and SASS, with the exception recently of RiotJS.

I am not against people trying to push front end technology forward, but it feels like we're just inventing a thousand different wheels when the first wheel wasn't really lacking much so long as you knew how to use it.

I am wary of any new JS library as if the past many years are anything to go by, it's practically technical debt the moment it hits v1, if it ever does.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#285

Post by nikdaheratik »

I can sense the frustration, but I don't think it's the web's problem necessarily, and I've done work in both areas. Some ideas just don't work well in a web browser, because despite 20 years of attempts to force it down that path, a web browser isn't the same as something like Flash, let alone a native software stack. There are more stakeholders than just the app development people, and they don't always care about the same things you do.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#286

Post by elliotec »

graycat wrote: post #258
elliotec wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to tell us what is wrong first, in other words why do you think you're going wrong? There is nothing wrong with what you've described as far as I can tell. But what issues are you having? Users not going to your site? Likely not a tech problem.

Thanks. My site is not live on the Internet yet. On my development computer, it appears that the site works as intended, but I'm still testing, say, alpha testing. Then when I invite in people, call that beta testing. For what is "wrong", I am just guessing that I might have encountered some of the problems mentioned in the OP. Or, maybe even the simple, old HTML, CSS, and JavaScript I'm sending to the users might ha…

As long as the people developing your site have been keeping up with things since the mobile web became a thing (several years), it should be expected that they can develop an app that functions well on just about any device that will run it.

This is common, required knowledge of developers. They should be testing the site on as many devices as possible, and developing it with cross-browser capabilities in mind and tooling that does it for them. You can check yourself to see if it works

There is no excuse for not being able to develop a consistent experience across as many devices as possible. And it sounds like the poor OP just got a lazy developer.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#288

Post by ProfChronos »

Really excessive and sometimes completely out of the road: "Open standards are always going to be inferior to closed ones. How many of our web evangelist are using an Apple laptop, the most closed ecosystem around?" You have many open standards that are superior to closed ones, simply because it unleashes creativity of the community. Many techies use Apple because they build an amazing user experience, based on a closed but very large ecosystem - go to the App Store and you'll see most of the apps you need

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#289

Post by zeta0134 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #161
rsp1984 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author is already addressing this: Yes, you can build 2007 websites much better now. They will be consistent across platforms and perform great. But my 12 year olds don’t want 2007 websites. They want 2016 apps.

Sure, but "2016 App" and "2007 App" are not monolithic design choices. If you can decompose those things, you can keep the important bits and throw away the peacocking. Just a simple example: it's trivially easy to make large, flat shaded buttons on the web. That's going to be more familiar to younger users than native web buttons like those on HN. However, there's also spending weeks to make a web button that animat…

To argue the case of the middle ground, it's perfectly possible to give the impression of a well animated app without breaking HTML's layout and constraints everywhere. Simple, non-obtrusive animations can give your interface a ton of "app-like" weight, and avoiding the complexity makes it easier for browsers to render, and also generally less expensive to develop in the first place.

If it's possible to do it with the new CSS animations (which should be reasonably well accelerated on modern browsers) and gracefully degrade by... y'know, not having the animations play, that's probably the ideal compromise right there. If you start restructuring your DOM in the name of easier animations or flashier effects, you've gone too far.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#290

Post by collyw »

EGreg wrote: post #257
rsp1984 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author is already addressing this: Yes, you can build 2007 websites much better now. They will be consistent across platforms and perform great. But my 12 year olds don’t want 2007 websites. They want 2016 apps.

What exactly differentiates a "2007 website" from a "2016 app"?

Google maps was way better then. A little less screen for viewing the map, but way more usable.
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