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Google is killing the open web, part 2

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Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#221

Post by svieira »

akerl_ wrote: post #54
svieira wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing XSLT from browsers was long overdue > Google is willing to remove standards-compliant XML support as well. > They're the same picture. To spell it out, "if it's inconvenient, it goes", is something that the _owner_ does. The culture of the web was "the owners are those who run the web sites, the servants are the software that provides an entry point to the web (read or publish or both)". This kind of "well…

Can you cite where this "servant-oriented" mentality is from? I don't recall a part of the web where browser developers were viewed as not having agency about what code they ship in their software.

A nice recent example is "smooshgate", wherein it was determined that breaking websites with an older version of Mootools installed was not an acceptable way to move the web forward, so we got `Array.prototype.flat` instead of `Array.prototype.flatten`: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17141024

> I don't recall a part of the web where browser developers were viewed as not having agency

Being a servant isn't "not having agency", it's "who do I exercise my agency on behalf of". Tools don't have agency, servants do.

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#222

Post by zzo38computer »

andsoitis wrote: post #2

I don’t know. The author makes some arguments I could get entertain and get behind, but they also enumerate the immense complexity that they want web browsers to support (incl. Gopher). Whether or not Google deprecating XSLT is a “political” decision (in authors words), I don’t know that I know for sure, but I can imagine running the Chrome project and steering for more simplicity.

If you really want to improve the simplicity, there are better ways to do so rather than excluding Gopher.

(Also, they could make XSLT (and many other things that are built-in) into an extension instead, therefore making the core system more simpler.)

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#223

Post by akerl_ »

svieira wrote: post #221
akerl_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite where this "servant-oriented" mentality is from? I don't recall a part of the web where browser developers were viewed as not having agency about what code they ship in their software.

A nice recent example is "smooshgate", wherein it was determined that breaking websites with an older version of Mootools installed was not an acceptable way to move the web forward, so we got `Array.prototype.flat` instead of `Array.prototype.flatten`: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17141024 > I don't recall a part of the web where browser developers were viewed as not having agency Being a servant isn't "not…

I think you're reading way too much into that. For one thing, that's a proposal for Javascript, whose controlling body is TC39. For another, this was a bog standard example of a draft proposal where a bug was discovered, and rollout was adjusted. If that's having a "servant-oriented mindset", so do 99% of software projects.

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#224

Post by basscomm »

munificent wrote: post #86
ndriscoll wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> JavaScript is better than XSLT in every way Obviously not in every way. XSLT is declarative and builds pretty naturally off of HTML for someone who doesn't know any programming languages. It gives a very low-effort but fairly high power (especially considering its neglect) on-ramp to templated web pages with no build steps or special server software (e.g. PHP, Ruby) that you need to maintain. It's an extremely natu…

> XSLT is declarative and builds pretty naturally off of HTML for someone who doesn't know any programming languages. Have you ever met a single non-programmer who successfully picked up XSLT of their own volition and used it productively? I'd be willing to bet good money that the Venn diagram of users that fit the intersection of "authoring content for the web", "care about separating content from HTML", "comfortabl…

> Have you ever met a single non-programmer who successfully picked up XSLT of their own volition and used it productively?

Hi! I'm a non-programmer who picked up XSLT of my own volition and spent the last five-ish years using it to write a website. I even put up all the code on github: https://github.com/zmodemorg/wyrm.org

I spent a few weeks converting the site to use a static site generator, and there were a lot of things I could do in XSLT that I can't really do in the generator, which sucks. I'd revert the entire website in heartbeat if I knew that XSLT support would actually stick around (in fact, that's one of the reasons I started with XSLT in the first place, I didn't think that support would go away any time soon, but here we are)

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#225

Post by zzo38computer »

shadowgovt wrote: post #132

I don't think I'm plugged into the side of the Internet that considers XML "the backbone of an independent web." I think XML has some good features, but in general infatuation with it as either a key representation or key transmission protocol has waned over the years. Everything I see on the wire these days is JSON or some flavor of binary RPC like protobuffer; I hardly ever see XML on the wire anymore.

XML is not so good for most of the things it was used for, and JSON has some problems too (I prefer DER), but Google is doing many bad things with WWW and not only things relating to XML, whether or not XML is good.

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#226

Post by basscomm »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #96
ndriscoll wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> JavaScript is better than XSLT in every way Obviously not in every way. XSLT is declarative and builds pretty naturally off of HTML for someone who doesn't know any programming languages. It gives a very low-effort but fairly high power (especially considering its neglect) on-ramp to templated web pages with no build steps or special server software (e.g. PHP, Ruby) that you need to maintain. It's an extremely natu…

> not at all approachable for someone who just wants to make a web page If someone wants to make a web page they need to learn HTML and CSS. Why would adding a fragile and little-used technology like XSLT help?

> Why would adding a fragile and little-used technology like XSLT help?

A few years ago I bought a bunch of Skylanders for practically nothing when the toys to life fad faded away. To keep track of everything I made a quick and dirty XSLT script that sorted and organized the list of figures and formatted each one based on their 'element'. That would have been murderous to do in plain HTML and CSS: https://wyrm.org/inventory/skylanders.xml

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#227

Post by trinsic2 »

etchalon wrote: post #59
akerl_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite where this "servant-oriented" mentality is from? I don't recall a part of the web where browser developers were viewed as not having agency about what code they ship in their software.

I cannot imagine a time when browsers were "servant-oriented". Every browser I can think of was/is subservient to some big-big-company's big-big-strategy.

I don't remember it this way. It was my understanding that browsers were designed to browse servers and that servers, or websites designed themselves around web standards that were initiated by specs made part of browsing experience that web browsers created.

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#228

Post by zzo38computer »

shadowgovt wrote: post #143

Okay, I was entertaining the author's position to a point, but I have to get off the train where they sing the praises of NPAPI. Hey fam. I remember NPAPI. I wrote a very large NPAPI plugin. The problem with NPAPI is that it lets people run arbitrary code as your browser. it was barely sandboxed. At best , it let any plugin do its level best to crash your browser session. At worst, it's a third-party binary blob you…

> put binary blobs in your browser outside the security sandbox

There are reasons to do this sometimes, but usually it would be better to put them inside of the security sandbox (if the security sandbox can be designed in a good way).

The user (or system administrator) could manually install and configure any native code extensions (without needing to recompile the entire browser), but sandboxed VM codes would also be available and would be used for most stuff, rather than the native code.

Re: Google is killing the open web, part 2

#230

Post by basscomm »

Aurornis wrote: post #16

I have yet to read an article complaining about XSLT deprecation from someone who can explain why they actually used it and why it’s important to them. > I will keep using XSLT, and in fact will look for new opportunities to rely on it. This is the closest I’ve seen, but it’s not an explanation of why it was important before the deprecation. It’s a declaration that they’re using it as an act of rebellion.

> I have yet to read an article complaining about XSLT deprecation from someone who can explain why they actually used it and why it’s important to them.

I used it to develop a website because I'm not a programmer, but I still want to have some basic templates on my webpage without having to set up a dev environment or a static site generator. XML and XSLT extend HTML _just enough_ to let me do some fun things without me having to become a full-on programmer.

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