When Microsoft insists everybody is up to standard.
When will web browsers be complete?
51–60 of 213 posts
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#52"There is not much left for a Web browser to cover" - this reminded me of the famous "physics is mostly complete at this point." Web (browser) is the only cross-platform operating system, even if some standards say otherwise. I'm sure we'll see docker-style virtual web environments, cross-machine abstractions to simulate datacenters for distributed computing (GPU and such), PWA-style webapps bootable from USB sticks…
> "There is not much left for a Web browser to cover" - this reminded me of the famous "physics is mostly complete at this point."
Reminded me of microsoft saying they would no longer develop IE6 because browsers were done (i.e. netscape had gone bust)
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#53When Microsoft insists everyone is standard.
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#54The main problem with the current state of web browsers is that it's now impossible for a third party to develop a competing browser from scratch (or nearly from scratch). The already existing set is unimaginably huge, and it's a moving targets as browsers (especially Chrome) is throwing more and more features into it.
And WHATWG (and CSS WG) rejects the idea of HTML profiles (defining reasonable subsets) and even versions, or anything forward-compatibility for that matter, with supporters standing by and cheering.
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#55When this essay started with "As someone who has used the Web since 2007" I immediately felt old, so thanks for that. As someone who has been using the Web since 1994 (and I feel like I was late to the game), I can assure the author their perspective has a lot of recency bias and this isn't something to worry about, in the general sense. Or worry about it, because it already happened a while ago. Take your pick. Loca…
In 20 years it will be impossible to manually browse to an unapproved "unsafe" URL in a general purpose browser.
This is the real nightmare scenario...
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#56When Google itself cannot keep up with the moving target it has created, then it will be complete. I call it the Singularity.
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#57When this essay started with "As someone who has used the Web since 2007" I immediately felt old, so thanks for that. As someone who has been using the Web since 1994 (and I feel like I was late to the game), I can assure the author their perspective has a lot of recency bias and this isn't something to worry about, in the general sense. Or worry about it, because it already happened a while ago. Take your pick. Loca…
You literally couldn't have used the web much earlier than 1994 unless you were running a NeXT machine. I know because I've been on the net since 1988 and 1994 was when I first started browsing the web.
If you were on Windows it was tricky then as you had to download and configure your own tcp/ip stack. That was possible due to the ingenuity of Peter Tattam who sold software that let you do that. I met him back then and to some of us he was a true rockstar programmer.
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#58They will be complete when we realize that they can be better implemented as generic virtual machines.
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#59Quick comment on the presentation. This post could very easily be markdown and therefore rendered in a nice readable non-monospaced font. Instead it's a .txt and it's really painful to read. Edit: here's a rendered markdown conversion that is easier on the eyes: https://shrib.com/?v=nc#CapeStarling-6v1L9J
How is that easier to read? https://wtf.roflcopter.fr/pics/SpRqNBvB/0QUVpbN4.png
Re: When will web browsers be complete?
#60When this essay started with "As someone who has used the Web since 2007" I immediately felt old, so thanks for that. As someone who has been using the Web since 1994 (and I feel like I was late to the game), I can assure the author their perspective has a lot of recency bias and this isn't something to worry about, in the general sense. Or worry about it, because it already happened a while ago. Take your pick. Loca…
You literally couldn't have used the web much earlier than 1994 unless you were running a NeXT machine. I know because I've been on the net since 1988 and 1994 was when I first started browsing the web. If you were on Windows it was tricky then as you had to download and configure your own tcp/ip stack. That was possible due to the ingenuity of Peter Tattam who sold software that let you do that. I met him back then…
You're right. The explosion of the multi-plaform web happened in 1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libwww