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HTML is the Web

petelambert.com

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Re: HTML is the Web

#181

Post by z3t4 »

flohofwoe wrote: post #9

Unpopular opinion... but I think this is a too limited view of the web. My contrary opinion is that the actually important feature of the web is the URL, and the important feature of the browser is that it provides a sandboxed platform for running untrusted code without a builtin "walled garden moral police". It would be nice if operating systems would be exactly that, but for some reason "commercial" OS vendors are…

Apple planned to use web apps for iOS but developers wanted bare metal performance, and users also want bare metal performance. So dont blame the platforms, blame users and developers. As a Linux user you can however restrict what the app can do using Apparmor.

Re: HTML is the Web

#182

Post by antibland »

dccoolgai wrote: post #130
bo1024 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to disagree, but I guess the real problem is that webpages on the internet are being forced to serve both purposes. Paradigm 1 - interconnected, hyperlinked web of text-and-content-based documents: open, accessible, amenable to indexing and tooling and so forth. Paradigm 2 - delivery vehicle for cross-platform, full-featured, somewhat-security-sandboxed, applications. I agree with the article that it's s…

I think what the author is saying is that paradigm 2 is built _on top of_ paradigm 1 and if you can't do #1 right, then by definition _neither_ can be right. It's astounding the number of interview candidates who are super-fluent in JS but can't tell you to save their lives why it's a bad idea to put a click handler on a div. React will die (It's already started to) and we'll migrate back to the actual Web at some po…

> React will die (It's already started to)

I read a lot of articles about front end, including framework & library trends, usage statistics, rumors, etc., though I've never heard that React has begun to die. Can you provide a citation?

Re: HTML is the Web

#183

Post by ecmascript »

godshatter wrote: post #150
ecmascript wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is an unpopular opinion, since I am of the same. I agree with you that the URL is the most important feature of the web. Without it, you could just as well deploy native apps because it wouldn't really make that much of a difference. Without javascript and a heavy client side, I wouldn't have a job today since the application I build is simply not possible to create with just html+css. Sure there a…

What we need, in my opinion, is a new protocol. Leave http(s) for documents and make a new protocol designed from the ground up for interactive applications. That solves the problem of trying to shove an application into a document viewing sub-system and should allow for more creativity and efficiency, depending on what this new protocol turns out to be. What's happening now is like trying to force ftp to show docume…

Maybe that would make it better, maybe not. It's hard to get everyone on the same page working together on a platform that noone ownes. If it was easy, there would have been several protocols in use already.

I am content with what we got and are happy about it. I think it works pretty great after all.

Re: HTML is the Web

#184

Post by [deleted] »

ricardobeat wrote: post #176
giobox wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree semantically use of can be clearer, clickable divs can still play largely fine with most accessibility technologies if ARIA attributes are used. Does it semantically make the most sense? Not necessarily, but it isn't a blocker to most accessibility tools and use and support for ARIA attributes is pretty widespread nowadays, including all of the major browsers and screen readers. > https://developers.goo…

Number of times I remember seeing an an app using ` ` with proper aria attributes: 0.

[deleted]

Re: HTML is the Web

#186

Post by giobox »

ricardobeat wrote: post #176
giobox wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree semantically use of can be clearer, clickable divs can still play largely fine with most accessibility technologies if ARIA attributes are used. Does it semantically make the most sense? Not necessarily, but it isn't a blocker to most accessibility tools and use and support for ARIA attributes is pretty widespread nowadays, including all of the major browsers and screen readers. > https://developers.goo…

Number of times I remember seeing an an app using ` ` with proper aria attributes: 0.

It's often a legal or contractual requirement when selling software to public bodies in many countries, so I've seen it used a lot. Mileage may vary in other markets.

The important point is that fundamentally using a in place of can still be made to work easily with these accessibility tools - many comments here imply it can't be done at all and only a button will work. Does it semantically make sense? Likely no, but it isn't a hard blocker on accessibility.

Re: HTML is the Web

#187

Post by krapp »

feanaro wrote: post #177
krapp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is both web "pages" and web "apps" are documents, and both are the web. Web pages which use javascript to render text or fetch remote content by AJAX can still be as much documents as fully static HTML pages, if their primary purpose is to convey textual or visual information. And fully static sites can be made interactive without javascript, though backend processes. Viewing "pages" and "apps" as wholly se…

> Viewing "pages" and "apps" as wholly separate and mutually hostile paradigms seems to be a recent cultural development born more out of frustration with advertising and modern complexity than any technically meaningful distinction between the two. Well there is a pretty fundamental tension between programs written in a Turing-complete language and a program written in one that is not. Resorting to too much power to…

>Well there is a pretty fundamental tension between programs written in a Turing-complete language and a program written in one that is not.

Maybe, but you still can't consider anything running javascript an "app" and anything not a "document," since interactivity and state isn't bound to running javascript, and most javascript is just used to render documents.

My point is that the distinction people draw between the two is more emotional than technical.

>Resorting to too much power too early is dangerous and messy.

To be fair, notwithstanding exploits in the underlying browser or hardware which lead to things like Spectre, at least javascript is sandboxed. No one is going to be able to sneak "rm -rf /*" into a script and have it work the way they could a native application.

Re: HTML is the Web

#188

Post by mosdl »

giobox wrote: post #165
cortesoft wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, it won't play nice with accessibility helpers... screen readers, keyboard interaction, etc.

While I agree semantically use of can be clearer, clickable divs can still play largely fine with most accessibility technologies if ARIA attributes are used. Does it semantically make the most sense? Not necessarily, but it isn't a blocker to most accessibility tools and use and support for ARIA attributes is pretty widespread nowadays, including all of the major browsers and screen readers. > https://developers.goo…

Reinventing the wheel is bad

Re: HTML is the Web

#189

Post by Lowkeyloki »

Lowkeyloki wrote: post #185

The author is right, but this comes off very much as "old man yells at cloud" to me. Sorry.

Let me give slightly more context. As a developer, I'd love to use div less often. However, I feel like the promise of the "semantic web" fell short. And "web components" as a first-class HTML citizen isn't really there. So React/Vue components are the best we've got even though they're actually just divs and spans at the lowest level. I want the web to be semantic and componentized. But it's not there yet and this is the best we've got.
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