Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions? • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by asddubs » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:23 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #119

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…

I’ve used Xcode for many thousands of hours at this point and I have to say I actually think it’s pretty good now that I understand how it is supposed to work. But for a web developer who just shipped some JavaScript for Firefox and Chrome…just no, this is stupid however you look at it. The fact that you have to download a dozen gigabytes just to get access to what’s a glorified shell script, then packaging some web…

Or even just test things in safari. Guess I have to spend at least 200$ on an ipod touch if i want to test in some sort of version of safari, significantly more if i want to test on a non iDevice (with an actual console etc)

Obviously for a business this is a neglegible cost but for someone just making a hobby app, it's ridiculous. microsoft at least offers VMs with edge and ie on it

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

#122

Post by chipotle_coyote » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #94

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…

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 tr…

> 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.

As an Apple fan -- albeit one who came back to the platform after years with FreeBSD, Windows 2000/XP, and BeOS (yes, full-time for over a year) and who uses Linux via ssh daily -- I am concerned what the future of the Mac as a development platform is going to be. I think your first paragraph is right on point.

I don't mind Apple going their own way with Safari to some degree, and there are things I just like about it as a browser -- it's fast, I find its minimal UI a bit more to my taste than either Chrome or Firefox, and I like that it syncs tabs and bookmarks between all my devices. (Yes, I know I could get that if I fully committed to either Firefox or Chrome.) But adapting WebExtensions support and then requiring developers to wrap those extensions in Xcode-built Mac applications that have to be published on the App Store just seems like Apple shooting themselves in the foot. It may be a handsome space gray gun milled out of a single block of aluminum, but it's still a problem.

(I'm also not sure why Apple won't at least support Vulkan in addition to Metal, but that's probably a different discussion.)

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

#123

Post by AaronFriel » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:06 AM UTC

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…

What does any of that have to do with supporting the WebExtension open specification?

It sounds like, to me, I can't ship a WebExtension for Safari because I don't own a Mac. Is that right?

Does that sound right to you?

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

#124

Post by simplecto » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:09 AM UTC

AaronFriel wrote: post #123

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…

What does any of that have to do with supporting the WebExtension open specification? It sounds like, to me, I can't ship a WebExtension for Safari because I don't own a Mac. Is that right? Does that sound right to you?

Yes it does sound right.

Do you ship untested software?

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

#125

Post by panic » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

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…

All three of those developers started writing Mac software (or NeXT software, in Omni's case) in the 80's and 90's, before Xcode or the Apple Developer Program. The wider Mac developer community was hollowed out by the iPhone in the late 2000's-early 2010's and never really recovered. Who is starting a Mac-only software shop in 2021?

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

#126

Post by franga2000 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

simplecto wrote: post #124

AaronFriel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does any of that have to do with supporting the WebExtension open specification? It sounds like, to me, I can't ship a WebExtension for Safari because I don't own a Mac. Is that right? Does that sound right to you?

Yes it does sound right. Do you ship untested software?

You mean like web devs ship websites only tasted in latest Google Chrome? How Microsoft ships Windows tested only on a handful of hardware configs? How game devs ship games only tested on the latest graphics card?

The whole point of having standards, conventions and stable interfaces is that developers do not have to test their code on every "platform" (in this case browser). If there are platform-specific differences from the standards, that is the platform developer's problem.

And keep in mind we're mostly talking about individuals here - companies rarely develop extensions and those that do can probably afford an old mac to use as a complie box. Extensions are usually developed by individuals in their spare time and rely on beta testers anyways, as it is already impractical for one dev to test them on every possible config.

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

#127

Post by oblio » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #113

josephg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pretty bad. XCode (with swift) seems to crash on me regularly just with normal usage. The last time I used it occasionally it would lag so badly that it sometimes lost characters I was typing, and my code would come out completely garbled (what!?). A few weeks ago I tried to do a local build of Signal's iOS app and the swift compiler errored out on some random function. Apparently it spent so long doing type infe…

Xcode with Swift is a bit odd in that its performance varies greatly depending on project structure and as nonintuitive as it may be, the way the developer writes code. For instance a sprawling project with an even split of Objective-C and Swift that constantly call into each other can bring SourceKit to its knees, as can some CocoaPods setups. Going Swift-only or even just reducing the surface between Objective-C an…

To summarize, this is the most Apple of arguments, that you're making:

"You're holding it wrong."

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

#128

Post by mrweasel » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:31 AM UTC

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…

I haven't used Xcode much, so it's not for me to say if it's good or bad. However, I would assume that Apple uses Xcode internally, if it was a pain to use, in general, would Apple fix it? At least to save on development cost internally.

Of cause it could be that Xcode is very finely tuned to Apples needs, which may be radically different from those of 3. party developers.

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

#129

Post by coldtea » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:45 AM UTC

AaronFriel wrote: post #123

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…

What does any of that have to do with supporting the WebExtension open specification? It sounds like, to me, I can't ship a WebExtension for Safari because I don't own a Mac. Is that right? Does that sound right to you?

More than right, sounds like the responsible thing to do.

Sorry, I don't trust extensions or programs from people who won't even own a machine to test them on for that particular platform!

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

#130

Post by coldtea » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:46 AM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #126

simplecto wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does sound right. Do you ship untested software?

You mean like web devs ship websites only tasted in latest Google Chrome? How Microsoft ships Windows tested only on a handful of hardware configs? How game devs ship games only tested on the latest graphics card? The whole point of having standards, conventions and stable interfaces is that developers do not have to test their code on every "platform" (in this case browser). If there are platform-specific difference…

>The whole point of having standards, conventions and stable interfaces is that developers do not have to test their code on every "platform" (in this case browser).

Well, we don't have standards for native apps, only partial standards for different APIs and protocols, so there's that.

And the change Apple made, to allow for Chrome-like extensions, is already more "standard" than before (where it was Safari-only extension APIs). It just requires one more step.