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Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

woob.tech

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Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#61

Post by anderspitman »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #52
dylan-m wrote: post #31

I like the idea of this. There's so much information on the web, but we still need a way to bring that information to other applications, without being tied to a particular source. That was really the dream of the semantic web, after all. This kind of idea would be really nicely paired with good Microformats[1] support, which continues to be a very good idea. That way we can find, say, a recipe or an address on a web…

One problem is that it takes a lot of work and effort to build any of the valuable hubs where people post information. Ever try to start a forum? It's a monumental task with no guarantee of success. You may even need to employ people to grow and maintain one. And once you've finally grown one of these hubs that accumulates recipes, lyrics, real estate listings, classifieds, etc. (whatever you had in mind) there's no…

Ha, I'm trying to start a data ownership forum now. My approach has been to have it be a central place for support for all my open source projects. We'll see how that works out.

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#62

Post by anderspitman »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #42
dylan-m wrote: post #31

I like the idea of this. There's so much information on the web, but we still need a way to bring that information to other applications, without being tied to a particular source. That was really the dream of the semantic web, after all. This kind of idea would be really nicely paired with good Microformats[1] support, which continues to be a very good idea. That way we can find, say, a recipe or an address on a web…

> I like the idea of this. There's so much information on the web, but we still need a way to bring that information to other applications, without being tied to a particular source. I'm not sure I'm interpreting you correctly here, but I think I'm on the other side of this. The problem is that many modern websites are godawful. I think the story pretty much ends there. If websites were not awful, we wouldn't find ou…

> Discovering decent content is harder, as there's an arms race of ad-funded spammers trying to out-compete legitimate recipe sites in search-engine rankings

I wonder if we even need the search engines? I think a lot of the things we've come to rely on them for could easily be handled in other ways. Recipes for example. You don't really want the best recipe page for a given dish. You want a good quality recipe site that has a recipe for that dish. Quality of recipe sites ebb and flow as they sell out and incentives change, but generally you would probably only need to be aware of the top 2-3 sites. This is exactly the type of information that is easily stored as "tribal knowledge" on a subreddit, forum sticky, community wiki, or even blasting out to your Facebook friends "hey what's everyone's favorite recipe site?"

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#63

Post by anderspitman »

vannevar wrote: post #36
smt88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually love the idea of being able to interact with websites via a standard API rather being forced to use web-based UI they provide. For a while, people were pitching this as Web 2.0. It's also what RSS and podcasts still are. Unfortunately, most of the websites we visit are revenue-generating and want to control their presentation.

Right. There are all kinds of great services that could be built on top of other peoples' web sites, but most sites want to own the relationship with their customer directly. And most of the great ideas for mashup services are predicated on the idea that the mashup will get most of the revenue, which is not going to fly with the underlying value providers. In an ad-supported web world, those who own the eyeballs call…

It's a tricky problem. I just have to believe there's a way we can make the world work without ads at all. They're just gross. But I have no idea how that could happen.

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#64

Post by onion2k »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #12

Wow! I actually love the idea of being able to interact with websites via a standard API rather being forced to use web-based UI they provide. It opens up a whole lot of possibles for things like alternate clients, standard UIs for interacting across multiple sites, etc. Also eliminates the possibility of sites engaging in annoying or abusive behavior by putting users in full control of the client rather than the sit…

I actually love the idea of being able to interact with websites via a standard API rather being forced to use web-based UI they provide.

That's what HTTP is. You're free to write a client that isn't a browser that sends and receives the same API messages as any HTTP client app does. Most people use browsers, but there's also things like iOS and Android apps that consume the same APIs as browsers, or Postman that directly communicates with the APIs, etc.

The APIs that sit in top of HTTP are even sort of standardized in the sense that HTTP verbs mean the same everywhere (in theory, but some devs get it wrong.)

Thr only hard bit that no one has really solved in a nice way is how you discover the APIs in the first place. There's things like WSDL but it's horrible.

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#65

Post by mkdirp »

mahastore wrote: post #55

Good example of another solution without a problem.

Really? You ever tried automating your own data from e.g. your bank? Cos I have, and it's a lot more annoying that it should be.

Woob does a lot more than just banks. It allows you to get any of your data. Adding additional providers is piss easy too.

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#67

Post by Vosporos »

userbinator wrote: post #38
pjerem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I think they are, also, just for making fun of some brands. Because, also a fun fact : this project changed its name recently, it was called Weboob before: https://weboob.org

I remember weboob, and all the amusing names of the various pieces. Unfortunate that the (French) humour was killed by political correctness.

Je suis française et cet humour était vraiment merdique

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#68

Post by littlestymaar »

userbinator wrote: post #38
pjerem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I think they are, also, just for making fun of some brands. Because, also a fun fact : this project changed its name recently, it was called Weboob before: https://weboob.org

I remember weboob, and all the amusing names of the various pieces. Unfortunate that the (French) humour was killed by political correctness.

It's not “political correctness” which killed the humor, in fact the humor was there by accident and at the beginning the creator of the project found that funny, so it stuck for a while

> When weboob was started in 2010, 11 years ago, the name was chosen, without a hidden agenda, since as a French speaker, "boob" wasn't part of my vocabulary.

> Following its release and the ensuing reactions, during its first years, the project was complemented with various provocative elements (icons, application names, English slurs in the code). This was done with the sole motive that at that time, it was seen as "fun".

But when the project gained traction he realized that the name was probably not appropriate for people building business apps with it, which he wanted to support.

> But in practice, it's been years the project isn't following this approach anymore, it's used as an essential building block of professional companies, the provocative elements are progressively removed, and the professionnalisation[sic] question is being raised.

Source: Weboob will become woob − https://lists.symlink.me/pipermail/weboob/2021-February/0016...

Re: Woob: Web Outside of Browsers

#69

Post by dillondoyle »

dylan-m wrote: post #31

I like the idea of this. There's so much information on the web, but we still need a way to bring that information to other applications, without being tied to a particular source. That was really the dream of the semantic web, after all. This kind of idea would be really nicely paired with good Microformats[1] support, which continues to be a very good idea. That way we can find, say, a recipe or an address on a web…

Funnily, Google has pushed websites to add more structured data into their html for crawling..

Seems it's used for SEO hackinge. For instance on recipes why wouldn't a site give their recipe a super high rating. Those sites are awful SEO spam adservers basically.

But business info that can be used to map seems pretty valuable to google.

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structure...

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