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I’m done with the web

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Re: I’m done with the web

#241

Post by jimbokun »

jacquesm wrote: post #51
corresation wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is as if with the birth of the web there was a complete reboot of the IT industry The web won. It fought a battle against many foes, and it came out on top. Re-read that again and seriously think about it, because comments such as yours don't accept that simple reality. Do you contest it? Do you argue that the web somehow circumvented the competition? For 15 years I've been promoting the web with groups that I've…

Windows also 'won'. That does not make it the best solution. Merely the most successful.

Windows won...then lost to the web.

Re: I’m done with the web

#242

Post by erikpukinskis »

zoul wrote: post #111
johnbender wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the post differently. I think he was simply pointing out the fact that we've stagnated at the same level of abstraction in the web space for a long time. Cappuccino is just the example he's using to point out where we were relative to where we are and in that light it's almost a regression. For the purposes of his larger argument, the way that Cappuccino delivered its abstractions (Objective-J) isn't as import…

This is my feeling, too. I do iOS development for living and whenever I have to do some web programming, I feel like writing in assembly, having to micro-manage things I should not care about. It pains me that Cappuccino has received so little interest, for despite all its possible drawbacks it represents a very interesting path for future web programming.

> whenever I have to do some web programming, I feel like writing in assembly, having to micro-manage things I should not care about.

That applies in the opposite direction too. Native programming seems to involve jumping through insane hoops just to do simple things:

Like "put some text on the screen, this part is bold".

Or "open this web page".

Or "put these things next to each other, with 10px in between, unless the screen is a little narrower, then put the second one below with no margins".

Or "I want to play with the layout of this every day for the next month, have the new layout download every time someone uses this app".

I can write complete, ready-to-distribute web apps that do those things in 1-3 lines of code. Doing so in iOS takes many layers of indirection.

Look at something like Ember.js. The abstractions being put in place are fascinating. Or CSS. It's is an incredibly powerful abstraction on something that iOS just scratches the surface of.

The truth is, both the web and iOS have evolved to deal with specific pain points. Some things that are easy on one are hard on the other.

This idea that web programming is under-abstracted seems really narrow-minded to me.

Re: I’m done with the web

#243

Post by Get404 »

Me1000 wrote: post #236

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…

You and all the really great developers are welcome back to the web anytime you wish. Take a break. Enjoy your new job, and hopefully you'll gain new insights and ideas -- and share them...maybe even in new web technology. It's called burn out, and all great people experience it.

If you truly love the web, it has to be unconditional, just like real life. 280 slides is gone, just like Google Reader is gone, and somebody out there will fill the gap if there is one.

Web technology may be somewhat stagnant (I say it's "hindered"), but look at where the focus on technology has been since about...oh....2008. That also means there's opportunity ahead...you just have to see it. Calm before the storm, man. Now is the time to build and prepare. There won't be time to build solid technology once the next "sprint" comes.

Right before the next wave, you will stop hearing people say "web and mobile."

P.S. I learned Objective-C because I needed to. It was essential to my goals. Objective-J/Cappuccino never filled a need for me or my goals. It was as simple as that...with no emotions attached.

Re: I’m done with the web

#244

Post by anonfunction »

fusiongyro wrote: post #78

While I agree with the main thrust of the article, in my opinion what killed Cappuccino was that it was big, weird, and rather opaque. Did it ever occur to you that maybe it was just too much? One thing I liked about jQuery was that my webpages didn't have to become applications, they could just be webpages with behavior. It worked within the paradigm, you might say, and that's what I wanted and it's what my clients…

This was the comment I wanted to write.

Re: I’m done with the web

#245

Post by Joeri »

Me1000 wrote: post #236

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…

The best of luck to you in what comes next.

Personally i don't really agree with this perspective of a stagnating community. There was never this age where the majority of web apps were properly engineered, in fact they used to be much worse, and before that desktop development was an even bigger mess (visual basic, anyone?). I see a definite progression. The current "average" architecture is some sort of client-side mvc layer on top of a set of web services. That's immensely better than yesteryear's php messes.

Re: I’m done with the web

#246

Post by djhworld »

josteink wrote: post #122
martinced wrote: post #11

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…

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…

I think ASP.NETs popularity wasn't because developers thought it was cool, it was because Microsoft was very effective at selling it to management. What better sales pitch than to suggest you could whip up a "rich" business application with a series of drag and drops and a few tweaks to the code, in no time at all!

Oracle are doing similar things these days too.

Re: I’m done with the web

#247

Post by bokglobule »

I often wonder if the problem with programming (or software engineering, if you prefer) is that we're still in the stage of where builders were in the middle ages. We assume the model of a "master builder" that has to know every aspect of every part of the process of building something new. Compare that to today where trades people specialize in one part of construction and hone it to a fine point. How many of us would hire an electrician to fix our plumbing, or a roofer to hang drywall? Maybe in the future this will be what happens to software development: you'll bring in a UI trade to implement the UI, a database trade, a caching trade, etc. People who've taken years to fully understand their niche of software construction very well.

The other issue we don't have to face is any governmental enforcement of building codes (yet). When you install wiring in a building, you can't just run it however might be "cool" or "new". There are a variety of rules, that come from best practices developed over many years, that are followed. Imagine if before a client or a customer would accept a finished app if it had to pass inspection by a 3rd party for compliance with these "codes". I think we'd see a lot of the current state of development fall away pretty quickly. The newbies who won't take time to learn their craft, or quickly jump from new toy to new toy without learning any very well would be under pressure to change or leave the field.

Re: I’m done with the web

#248

Post by Joeri »

Get404 wrote: post #243
Me1000 wrote: post #236

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…

You and all the really great developers are welcome back to the web anytime you wish. Take a break. Enjoy your new job, and hopefully you'll gain new insights and ideas -- and share them...maybe even in new web technology. It's called burn out, and all great people experience it. If you truly love the web, it has to be unconditional, just like real life. 280 slides is gone, just like Google Reader is gone, and somebo…

If there was no iOS, objective-c would be a niche language. People learn it because they have to, not because they want to.

Re: I’m done with the web

#249

Post by spyder »

nhebb wrote: post #93

I tried the Aristo showcase ( http://www.cappuccino-project.org/aristo/showcase/ ), and it took 20 seconds to load on high speed internet connection w/ Chrome browser. I can understand developers' reluctance to use such a framework. If you've marketing a web app developed with Cappuccino, you're going to lose a lot of conversions with that kind of wait.

It loads in 5 seconds for me but the interface has many bugs and fails to implement many behaviors of native elements: scrolling with mouse wheel doesn't work, using the elements with keyboard is impossible because it seems many of them doesn't even have a focused state. When trying to focus on elements with the Tab key it's messing up the whole scrollview because after that elements aren't working even with the mouse. Pressing the Enter key redirects to another page. So it's a pretty bad showcase and the other demos too have the same issues. (using Firefox on Windows)

Re: I’m done with the web

#250

Post by lazyjones »

laumars wrote: post #119
johnbender wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the post differently. I think he was simply pointing out the fact that we've stagnated at the same level of abstraction in the web space for a long time. Cappuccino is just the example he's using to point out where we were relative to where we are and in that light it's almost a regression. For the purposes of his larger argument, the way that Cappuccino delivered its abstractions (Objective-J) isn't as import…

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…

We have stagnated because new APIs, frameworks, environments appear at a rate too high for anyone to build meaningful things on top of them before they become obsolete again. We also wait longer until we adopt these new technologies, therefore narrowing the time frame to actually use them even more.

Low end devices are a good point, my main gripe with all these frameworks is that they make it very easy to break many conventions of the web (URLs no longer work as intended, extra efforts is needed to make the pages crawlable etc.).

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