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Why can't I write code inside my browser?

tomcritchlow.com

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Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#581

Post by jaegerpicker »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #503
robertlagrant wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they'd be right to, because actually the situation is inverted. Saying a useful tool is unnecessary and a symptom of the fact that all tools are broken is the sort of thing the person holding the chainsaw would say, not the people who understand why a whole range of tools exist.

Except the person you're talking to is a gardener, who uses a chainsaw frequently, and is saying that indeed the beginner is right to point out that we should definitely be using a better tool than a chainsaw. And then people shout them down because they've apparently become so accustomed to using a chainsaw that they honestly can't imagine a better way.

Except the Gardener is completely and totally wrong in this case. This assumes that no one else has tried something different. There have been an massive number of attempts at something better. The result? They have all failed and developers continue to use the command line. You can write a ton of type of apps with visual tools but almost universally it's sucked or only valuable for toy apps.

Examples that I have personal experience with:

  * VB6
  * Frontpage
  * Delphi
  * Access
  * Excel
  * Hell even storyboards in iOS based Dev
  * Blueprints in Unreal Engine
  * etc...
The same results, they work for non-programmers/non-professional programmers. Almost without question we have seen that text based programming on a more or less standard *nix based OS or text based programming on a Windows OS are the two ways that are the most effective for engineering of software. The programmers complaining about the tooling we use? Sure we should continue to improve that tooling but that doesn't mean scrapping the basic fundamentals. The installer should ask to modify the $PATH and then do that. There that solves that issue and doesn't throw out 50+ years of science and research and experience on the best way to engineer software.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#582

Post by gjvc »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #569
gjvc wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With good reasons at the time -- browsers were slow and heavy. Now we have (among others) the V8 Javascript engine and insanely fast client computers (all of any recent desktop, laptop, and mobile device)

Browsers are slower and heavier than they ever were. V8… you could argue it's faster, if you neglect warm-up time, but even it is heavier.

acknowledged, but in my experience they are way quicker than 1990s / 2000s browsers

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#583

Post by twobitshifter »

robenkleene wrote: post #390
twobitshifter wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of Firefox Developer Edition? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

No, I wasn’t, thanks for pointing it out! I’d love to hear which of the issues I listed that it addresses. The tag line “welcome to your new favorite browser. Get the latest features, fast performance, and the development tools you need to build for the open web”, as well as the features listed on the homepage, don’t address any of the points I listed directly. (This doesn’t mean the app itself doesn't, but I'm not e…

I’m not sure it is a complete reimagining, but it does take a developer first approach. Many Dev tools need to be extendable and the Firefox team has tried to do that with the built-in dev tools.

> The new Firefox DevTools are powerful, flexible, and best of all, *hackable*. This includes a best-in-class JavaScript debugger, which can target multiple browsers and is built in React and Redux.

Here’s an example of extending the devtools for react https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/react-devtool...

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#584

Post by jaegerpicker »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #545
kaoD wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there in the past and the tools are really not comparable. I just inserted a floppy disk and did A: then TP.EXE (which was just as arcane as knowing $PATH) but do I really want to work on Turbo Pascal in MS-DOS? Of course complexity skyrocketed! That's not a counterexample because beginners have contemporary expectations. There are simpler alternatives that just work. Why do beginners want to use Node.js locall…

> I was there in the past and the tools are really not comparable. I just inserted a floppy disk and did D: then TP.EXE but do I really want to work on Turbo Pascal in MS-DOS? Of course complexity skyrocketed! Did it do so for reasons that are still relevant today, is the question. > That's not a counterexample because beginners have contemporary expectations. Alright I'll present a counterexample: Lazarus. You downl…

> I contend that the problem $PATH solves has nothing to do with programming. $PATH is a solution for finding programs when you type their name on the commandline, nothing more. Windows and Mac programs don't really use or need it for the vast majority of tasks. Programming does not fundamentally require $PATH.

Do you write programs that don't load libraries? That don't interact with files? $PATH is required (or something to search along to find those libraries or files). I've been programming for 25+ years and I can't think of a serious actual application that I've written that doesn't need something like $PATH. Even simple data formatting console apps generally need to load a JSON library or something similar. It's impossible to bundle every library needed for an app in every app. People keep saying that $PATH isn't needed but location services of some kind is absolutely needed! I'd argue that $PATH is the result of 50+ years of engineering/science and research and is the best known way to address that issue as of now.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#585

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

minkzilla wrote: post #579
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to question whether all of that is necessary just to program stuff for the web.

“Just” to program stuff for the web? Web development is a complicated and amazing feat of engineering! The fact that you can write some code on your machine to make any pretty graphic and maze of pages you want and it will run in this thing we call a browser that pretty much anyone in the world can also run even if they are on Linux, windows, android, iOS, or any other number operating systems not to mention hardware…

This delusion that the web is an amazing feat of engineering is frankly astonishing to me. It is constantly broken and basically entirely relies on a single browser engine controlled entirely by one of the largest organizations on the planet. It has well known security footguns at every turn.

It isn't even unprecedented. Way back in the 90s Another World used a bytecode VM for portability between hardware platforms. It ran on a whole lot of them and had input, graphics, and sound. Before that Infocom used a VM for its text adventures that was ported to many platforms. P-Code existed before that. The modern web browser, and web code, is a jankier, significantly more complicated, design-by-intertia/committee/def-facto-monopoly hybrid monstrosity. It's a document viewer with incoherent bits glued on until it kinda almost works like an application platform.

> Think of all the layers of abstraction and code that is necessary to have millions of combinations of hardware + software all show the same thing!

Not that f'ing many if you didn't engineer your VM like a blind monkey! Cross platform VMs are not a new idea, at all, and that's essentially what the modern web is, only it's the most Frankenstein version of that idea ever conceived.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#586

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

minkzilla wrote: post #573
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For what sort of users? It's clear a number of people here consider the command line difficult. I do not. There are many tools that make simple tasks very simple. I use it for manipulating tab files. I can pipe data through scripts and back through command line utilities, pipe it directly into a database, or do the reverse. It's very simple, and very powerful. Consider all the things you've committed to memory that…

But in the long run knowing all that makes it easier. We could have some GUI for doing all those things but it would end up being a massive mess of buttons EVERYWHERE and endless menus. And maybe a nice wizard could be designed for the given example that you could check the boxes as you go and it would be easy to figure out the first time. But after 5 years of doing this same thing do you want to spend 2 minutes clic…

> But in the long run knowing all that makes it easier. We could have some GUI for doing all those things but it would end up being a massive mess of buttons EVERYWHERE and endless menus.

I didn't cite the commandline itself as the problem. PowerShell does a significantly better job at making sense than typical core-utils do, but you hear people used to core-utils bad mouth it all the time because it isn't exactly the same as core-utils.

And I submit that your lack of ability to conceptualize a GUI for doing the same thing does not mean one can't exist, but that is beside the point, because I don't think knowing how to use those tools is a necessary and fundamental part of programming anyway.

Someone who is just getting started in a new programming environment shouldn't need to know the ins and outs of a dozen different tools, especially when those tools are used to solve problems that user has not even conceptualized the existence of yet.

Again, this all comes down to one thing: why is it so damned complicated just to get enough of a programming environment running that the user can write a goddamned program? Not write it well, not write it efficiently, just f'ing write it in the first place?

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#587

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

dagw wrote: post #119
aspyct wrote: post #59

I feel like the author is confused between server-side and client-side development, and proceeds to say that programming is hard. He even goes on to quote himself (sigh) as a proof of what he proposes. Look, maybe someone just explained it badly to you, and you should look it up for yourself. However, if the command line looks scary to you... wait until you read bad documentation :) My point is: yes, programming is a…

There's still plenty of awesome things you can do in IT without ever touching code I spend a lot of my day working in a 'no code' visual programming environment and the difference between the solutions created by the people who know how to program and those who don't know how to program is massive. Those who don't know how to program tend to fail at coming up with non-trivial solutions and are not really able to debu…

> They also always come up with the most 'brute force' solutions and can't really reason around performance.

Neither can most programmers if modern software is anything to judge by.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#588

Post by ozim »

Well have you tried to get a job as a software developer? It is 1000x harder and if you don't know what the PATH is, you are not passing.

To be hired as a developer you have to know 1000x more, small and not related in any way details.

Now we can start talking about gate keeping, because doing some side project might be hard but there is still a lot of "low code" stuff that you can do. Setup a blog? Go configure wordpress.

If someone wants to be a salaried software developer issues like in this blog post are going to finish his career before it has even started.

I understand that author might be annoyed - but understand how people who are making living out of it are feeling when they are denied job opportunity because they did not know that one trick that interviewer knew...

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#589

Post by kichimi »

dang wrote: post #556
kichimi wrote: post #96

I try to keep my comments nice on HN but in this case I can't, I've met this kind of person many times now and I just can't hold back. The author is lazy, and is channeling his energy into complaining rather than learning. He believes he is by default an expert on the 'user friendliness' of programming. His comments don't really make much sense, and come across as whining that should be ignored. "People hate command…

Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling in HN comments. It's against the site rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . Indignation commonly gets a lot of upvotes but it's not what we're looking for here.

I was aware of that when I posted, but honestly I'm tired of threads like this even hitting the front page of HN.

What value does this article even add? It's a google query with a rant attached to it.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#590

Post by robenkleene »

twobitshifter wrote: post #583
robenkleene wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I wasn’t, thanks for pointing it out! I’d love to hear which of the issues I listed that it addresses. The tag line “welcome to your new favorite browser. Get the latest features, fast performance, and the development tools you need to build for the open web”, as well as the features listed on the homepage, don’t address any of the points I listed directly. (This doesn’t mean the app itself doesn't, but I'm not e…

I’m not sure it is a complete reimagining, but it does take a developer first approach. Many Dev tools need to be extendable and the Firefox team has tried to do that with the built-in dev tools. > The new Firefox DevTools are powerful, flexible, and best of all, *hackable*. This includes a best-in-class JavaScript debugger, which can target multiple browsers and is built in React and Redux. Here’s an example of exte…

Cool, yeah not quite what I’m talking about but extensibility is certainly a core attribute of developer-centric tools.
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