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Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

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Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#91

Post by langitbiru »

floatingatoll wrote: post #30

The most popular web extensions are those that deprive sites of direct and indirect revenue, which necessarily means they can’t charge for the service or their userbase would revolt and steal their rule sets (which is easy to do for a web extension). Having to pay money for such things goes against the grain of those users, and the sort of breakage that people think is acceptable for content blockers isn’t quite as a…

I develop PredictSalary (https://predictsalary.com), a browser extension that can predict the salary range of job opportunities. It's free but one person told me that he didn't mind to pay me if I added support for job opportunities in his country (UK). The extension has 700+ users now. I don't know whether this number can be considered as significant user base or not.

Later, I'll add the capability to predict the salary range of people from their Linkedin profiles. I would make this a premium feature. Let's see how it goes.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#92

Post by sjwright »

rfoo wrote: post #85
JohnBooty wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also why (forcing more people to use XCode and thus the official APIs, BitCode, and so on), they can introduce a whole new architecture like AS and have macOS apps support it from day one, or old x86 apps running smoothly translated. It's a failure of HN culture that posts like this get downvoted. You can like it, loathe it, or feel somewhere in the middle. However, this is factually true, and it is a relevant…

... Or maybe it is not factually true? You can't beat Hyrum's law by simply "forcing more people to use official API", with enough code people still depends on every implementation details in your code.

Given that Apple has explicitly stated this benefit and given that Apple has explicitly utilised these exact benefits in the real world on multiple occasions, it's rather bold to propose that it might not be factually true.

Obviously it's not the only reason that Apple does things the way they do. It's probably not even the number one reason. But it's certainly one significant reason which seems to fit the objective criteria of being factually true.

(To be clear, I am stating no personal opinion about whether Apple's approach is "good" by any criteria.)

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#93

Post by apple_innocent »

JohnBooty wrote: post #80
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

That's also why (forcing more people to use XCode and thus the official APIs, BitCode, and so on), they can introduce a whole new architecture like AS and have macOS apps support it from day one, or old x86 apps running smoothly translated. It's a failure of HN culture that posts like this get downvoted. You can like it, loathe it, or feel somewhere in the middle. However, this is factually true, and it is a relevant…

Yeah but there's nothing that says the Xcode experience has to be so painful[1] or that people have to pay Apple or that software has to be approved by Apple in order to preserve this flexibility. Purchasers should have options, including the option to write software (for themselves) that works on the computer they paid for but might not work if Apple introduces computers based on a new architecture, which the existing Apple customer may or may not choose to buy in the future.

1. Painful for the parent commenter. It is painful for me, too. It might, or might not, be painful for others.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#94

Post by danShumway »

coldtea wrote: post #74
chmod775 wrote: post #71

As someone who has (re-)implemented and shipped quite a few native applications across ecosystems (Apple, Android, Windows, Linux) all I can say about this is: Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague . I will do it if I'm paid for it - I generally charge twice my hourly rate for anything Apple - but I cert…

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

Okay, but then you're going to have to be content with the fact that extension developers are largely going to just ignore Safari.

There's a little bit of mutual blindness that happens here both with anti-Apple commenters and pro-Apple commenters. It's absolutely true that Apple's tight integration and control over how developers work allows them to do things with their platform that no one else can do. It is also true that Apple is playing a very dangerous game with the MacOS ecosystem, and a lot of developers are looking at it and saying, "this is not a healthy relationship, there's zero reason for me to ever support this platform."

To a certain extent, Mac users don't care -- many of them are happy to be part of a diverging software ecosystem and to use apps that only work on their computers. Apple critics sometimes underestimate just how OK Mac users are with the idea of living in an isolated software world. To many Mac users, being in their own isolated, incompatible world of software is the point. But, it is also true that browsers like Safari are tangibly suffering for this, that Open Source developers and tool authors are starting to look at Mac as a losing battle, and that ultimately, if things continue in the same direction, this is going to mean that there is a lot more pivotal indie software/games/tools that decide not to support Mac -- and some of those will be programs that people on Mac actually want.

As an Apple critic or at least an Apple skeptic (even though I do some development on Mac hardware), I am curious what the future of Mac as a development platform is going to be. There was a period where I recommended Macs as a next-best alternative to Linux because of that Unix base. Now it is a very cautious recommendation, if it is a recommendation at all. I've run into more than a few really weird dev problems on Mac over the past year that have been kind of disruptive, and I haven't even updated to Big Sur yet -- which, from what I can tell introduces even more problems. In contrast, developing software (especially web-based software) on my Linux machines is pretty painless. And when I need to test in Windows, I can spin up free, official VMs. I don't have to have a special secondary computer to run tests on. So unless I'm building software specifically for Mac, it just kind of doesn't make sense to support anymore.

And frankly, if you're a solo developer who's into Open Source development or tools development or game development, you're very probably not going to be building software specifically for Mac, and you're probably willing to drop Mac if it means you can easily target Linux/Windows -- given the choice between MacOS and Windows, most devs are not going to choose to drop Windows. I mean, we can debate OpenGL and Vulkan, but I'm sure as heck not going to write a game that targets Metal, that would just be a colossal waste of time for realistically a rounding error in market share. This is something that Mac users are currently able to just shrug off (in no small part because of 'lazy' cross-platform apps/games that use Electron, QT, and Unity), but it might be a harder problem to ignore in the future.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#95

Post by danShumway »

seanwilson wrote: post #44
Nextgrid wrote: post #8

In addition to the money argument raised in another comment, the Apple development experience is a major annoyance when all you need is a couple lines of JS. I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to dea…

> I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to deal with all the signing & App Store distribution stuff if I actually want to distribute it. Probably less annoying, but there's still a time and effort cost…

Publishing extensions on Chrome/Firefox is annoying, and we probably would have more extensions if it was easier.

But, it's not so annoying that the entire platform is being abandoned. This is a matter of degree, but there's a point where the effects of that annoyance become very obvious.

If publishing on Apple devices was just a tiny bit more annoying, devs would complain and then still publish their extensions. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening, it seems Apple has crossed a line where extension devs have decided to just ignore the entire thing.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#96

Post by ivanhoe »

coldtea wrote: post #74
chmod775 wrote: post #71

As someone who has (re-)implemented and shipped quite a few native applications across ecosystems (Apple, Android, Windows, Linux) all I can say about this is: Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague . I will do it if I'm paid for it - I generally charge twice my hourly rate for anything Apple - but I cert…

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

> That's because such vendors (e.g. Panic, BareBones, Omni, and so on) won't do lowest common denominator apps, they keep up with the platform, they understand it, they hook in to new platform-only capabilities, etc.).

What about thousands of small devs/companies who are not Panic or others having contacts inside Apple and a privileged position? Here on HN there's at least one horror story a month about issues someone had with Apple, from ever changing terms, to review process that takes for ever - while still doesn't manage to catch many real offenders (especially in terms of privacy issues), but slows down legit devs trying to quickly fix bugs and close the security holes in their apps. It has become a layer over a layer of bureaucracy which more and more seems to be it's own purpose. Honestly there are much easier ways to make money as a programmer.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#97

Post by onelovetwo »

JohnBooty wrote: post #80
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

That's also why (forcing more people to use XCode and thus the official APIs, BitCode, and so on), they can introduce a whole new architecture like AS and have macOS apps support it from day one, or old x86 apps running smoothly translated. It's a failure of HN culture that posts like this get downvoted. You can like it, loathe it, or feel somewhere in the middle. However, this is factually true, and it is a relevant…

is downvoting even a thing in HN?

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#98

Post by coldtea »

apple_innocent wrote: post #93
JohnBooty wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also why (forcing more people to use XCode and thus the official APIs, BitCode, and so on), they can introduce a whole new architecture like AS and have macOS apps support it from day one, or old x86 apps running smoothly translated. It's a failure of HN culture that posts like this get downvoted. You can like it, loathe it, or feel somewhere in the middle. However, this is factually true, and it is a relevant…

Yeah but there's nothing that says the Xcode experience has to be so painful[1] or that people have to pay Apple or that software has to be approved by Apple in order to preserve this flexibility. Purchasers should have options, including the option to write software (for themselves) that works on the computer they paid for but might not work if Apple introduces computers based on a new architecture, which the existi…

>Yeah but there's nothing that says the Xcode experience has to be so painful

Well, who says it is objectively painful (as opposed to just not what the grandparent is used to or prefers)?

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#99

Post by coldtea »

rfoo wrote: post #85
JohnBooty wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also why (forcing more people to use XCode and thus the official APIs, BitCode, and so on), they can introduce a whole new architecture like AS and have macOS apps support it from day one, or old x86 apps running smoothly translated. It's a failure of HN culture that posts like this get downvoted. You can like it, loathe it, or feel somewhere in the middle. However, this is factually true, and it is a relevant…

... Or maybe it is not factually true? You can't beat Hyrum's law by simply "forcing more people to use official API", with enough code people still depends on every implementation details in your code.

>You can't beat Hyrum's law by simply "forcing more people to use official API", with enough code people still depends on every implementation details in your code.

That's neither here, nor there though. You can still beat the biggest part of fragmentation by "forcing more people to use official API".

Doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to make moving forward, porting to your new architectures and APIs, etc, easier.

In fact, Apple just showcased it works with the move to M1 (and to a lesser degree earlier with the move to x64 and the move to 64bits).

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#100

Post by coldtea »

smoldesu wrote: post #76
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

Apple cannot justify their transgressions against the modern development workforce as "a matter of platforms". The future cannot be segregated by platforms - that's part of the goal of a private and secure web. We need to work together to create secure infrastructure that everyone can trust, not huddle away and say that "Apple isn't looking for people like you". I understand that you're probably pretty impartial on t…

>Apple cannot justify their transgressions against the modern development workforce as "a matter of platforms".

Sure they can, and I for one, am fine with their justification. I don't want everything to be "secure web apps", I want to have native apps, and I want to have a choice of different platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.) each doing its own thing their way.

I don't want to use Linux as my desktop because I don't like their choices, the same way I don't want to use Windows or macOS as my server, because I don't like their choices.

>The future cannot be segregated by platforms

That's a monoculture dystopia then, not a future where many competing ideas about what platforms can be, what OSes offer, what their core tenets are, etc. flourish.

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