231–240 of 291 posts
Give me a beautiful UI library written with elegant and performant JS behind the scenes, but let me implement stuff in a non-desktop way using standard web technologies.
I like the concept of GWT, but Cappucino fell into the ExtJS/Sencha category for me - trying to reinvent the web using web technology.
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" I die a little bit inside. " Every time I hear a programmer condescend towards other programmers for using a higher level language, I also die a little bit inside. How is javascript not the "metal" of the web? It's a core part of the modern web experience upon which many libraries and frameworks have been built. I don't understand why that analogy is bad and is worthy of your condescension. Are you just being conde…
PFFFT! A language interpreted at runtime, by an application that runs inside an operating system (which may or may not be virtualized) that boots into protected mode. Let me get this straight, you're ostensibly describing this as being "bare metal"? Have you ever heard the terms "kernel mode" or "ring zero"? Oh wait, you qualified it as "the 'metal' of the web"... so it's an "analogy". Sorry to be pedantic, but when…
"Sometimes writing markdown feels like working on the bare metalloid"
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PFFFT! A language interpreted at runtime, by an application that runs inside an operating system (which may or may not be virtualized) that boots into protected mode. Let me get this straight, you're ostensibly describing this as being "bare metal"? Have you ever heard the terms "kernel mode" or "ring zero"? Oh wait, you qualified it as "the 'metal' of the web"... so it's an "analogy". Sorry to be pedantic, but when…
> The executable code is compiled into binary that directly correlates to the copper wires (and etched semi-conductors, or perhaps even vacuum tubes) of the specific, real, tangible machine intended to execute the code. You do realize it's been a while time since the ostensible instruction set and corresponding assembly language of most modern CPUs translated directly to the bare metal execution model of the machine.…
I understand what you're trying to say, but this is way off base. x86 instructions may not align exactly a processor's primitive operations, but that doesn't mean abstraction makes x86 similar to the JVM, at least not anymore than it is similar to a Bible printed on papyrus. But nobody cares if ancient Hebrew is just as much a virtual machine as Java, so stfu.
There's no way yet another webapp framework, no matter how close it emulates the desktop, is going to gain lots of traction when it mandates users to use... Objective-J and JavaScript. Seriously: being on your high horses and all is fine and well but your article is an oversimplification as to how the web works and as to what devs need and want. For example lately I've been very interested in flapjax (FRP UI) and web…
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There's no way yet another webapp framework, no matter how close it emulates the desktop, is going to gain lots of traction My objection is right here. No need to mix in the Objective-J at all. Microsoft's ASP.NET tried to do this thing, to a surprising amount of success. The context then ofcourse was "Web 1.0" pre-Digg internet and the only other "big thing" being PHP. Microsoft managed to take the whole "Draw a GUI…
As far as I know, Microsoft's ASP.NET was kind of a failure. It produced Frontpage-grade (e.g. dirty) html. It did the wrong thing by default and didn't help much with the right thing. It also brought in some clueless people who had no idea how HTTP, HTML and JS work, with questions like "why my button.hover event does not work" (this was pre-ajax, the event code was on the server and had no ways of knowing the user…
Eventually, yes. Which I addressed. But prior to the whole Web 2.0-thing, it was actually pretty successful by lots of means.
I'm not saying ASP.NET MVC is superior in most respects. There's no doubt about that, but it was clearly a late-started initiative which should have started much earlier. ASP.NET already had lost its respect and was a waning star by the time they got the first version out the door.
These days it's actually fairly pleasant to work with. The only thing I can say I really dislike about it is that you can still find the traces of all the old ASP.NET warts there, if you go beneath the hood.
Edit: Thanks for being the only one replying to the actual topic at hand, as opposed to doing inane discussions about what "real metal" is these days. And that's coming from someone with a degree in electrical engineering and design of digital electrical circuitry.
First off, thank you all for the comments! Also, thank you Paul for posting this and helping me articulate my thoughts while writing it! Finally, thank you to everyone who has wished me success in my future endeavors.
Although I expected this post would step on some toes and anger several people (although I tried my best not to), I'm happily surprised by the reaction in general. HN tends towards the negative, by the Twitter feedback has sparked some great discussion.
I can't respond to each thread, but I'd like to take a moment to address some misunderstandings about the post. First off, I'm not trying to sell you on Cappuccino. The project as just as strong as it has ever been and the people doing the day to day work are very dedicated. I'm also not upset that Cappuccino wasn't a massive success or that it didn't dominate the world. The use of Cappuccino in my post was purely to illustrate my point of view. We built some great software, and I'm really proud of that.
The post is more about the stagnation of the community as a whole.
It's very difficult to write this kind of post without sounding defensive or like I'm bitter because my projects weren't massively successful. I tried my best, but ultimately you read the result. The tone of the post should read more as disappointment rather than anger. I'm disappointed in what hasn't been accomplished in the last 3 years. Many of you saw how great 280 Slides was when it was first introduced, and it's regrettable that it's not available today.
I want my friends to be very successful and I have no animosity towards them. The tools exist to build great things on the web and I hope this post inspires someone to make use of them.
Many of you disagree with my assertions, and that's fine. But I'm not the only person who feels this way. Paul Irish an avid web evangelist and Tom Dale of the Ember project share my concerns. And while we might disagree on the role of the web, I think many people agree that it should empower developers to build great things.
I've seen a lot of really great developers move on to other things because they share my frustrations and disappointments.
… and yes, the bits vs bytes line about dial up was my mistake. :) but I don't think it really changes the point.
[edits for clarity and spelling]
How many damn Javascript libraries do we constantly integrate and learn? New css like languages (scss,less). Server side languages?
I'm sick and tired of people saying web developers are somehow 2nd class programmers who only understand HTML.
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Have we stagnated? Or has the rise of lower powered web-enabled devices forced us to re-think the classic rule of programming (ie that applications can progressively increase their system requirements as PCs are progressively becoming more powerful to handle the load). Let's remember that even as recently as 2-3 years ago, top end phones and tablets were single core ARM processors clocked at ~1GHz. And devices of tha…
This trend is likely to continue as the billion or so potential customers in emerging markets start getting their hands on affordable smartphones. The idea right now for telecoms and device manufacturers is more about getting their stuff in as many people's hands as possible, not about whether they can replace a screaming desktop with a handheld.
Let make information available to everyone; then we can worry about making those sites fancier than a strippers underwear draw.
Author here: First off, thank you all for the comments! Also, thank you Paul for posting this and helping me articulate my thoughts while writing it! Finally, thank you to everyone who has wished me success in my future endeavors. Although I expected this post would step on some toes and anger several people (although I tried my best not to), I'm happily surprised by the reaction in general. HN tends towards the nega…
I don't think that this is due to laziness or rouded-corner cravings (although the "new shiny toy" effect is very much existing).
I think this has more to do with the different timelines web developers face when building apps. Not all of them can afford the long learning curves required by Cappucino and the fact that objective-J is only useful for Cappuccino. Not all of them need to build app-looking apps or spend lots of time bending the defaults to look like something else
So the web community turns to low learning curve libraries as a side effect of not having the time to commit (as opposed to not wanting), better ones coming out all the time (things moving at a whole order of magnitude faster than in other software development areas), and using only 10% of the power brought by cappuccino.
This encourages more quick, single feature libs, which in turns brings more developers into that worldview.
Note that this argument is not about wether this is right or wrong. More about the why.
One can note that making those micro libraries work together is getting harder and harder, and that some folks (full disclaimer, we are one of those) are building glue layers and light architectures to guide developers and ease integration and make those libraries interact together seamlessly.
Take http://github.com/aurajs/aura (that's the one we're working on). It acknowledges both the fact that small, single-feature libraries are the way the web is heading, and that making those interoperable, and easy to load (a clean module system is central to aura) needs work.
Maybe small, badly written, non interoperable, single use libraries are just a step on the way to a truly modular, flexible and light web development process.