HTML is object code
rondam.blogspot.com
HTML is object code
1–10 of 68 posts
Re: HTML is object code
#2This a a major leap. Once you understand that HTML is object code, a whole new world of architectural possibilities opens up to you.
Not exactly a new idea either. pg talked about this years ago...
Re: HTML is object code
#3I think this makes good points about how we should be working with html these days, except those few of us who do static tables by hand.
One thing I am concerned about in the concept of doing all the work on the server is that CSS has the ability to let the client override some of the presentation issues, such as is the case for accessibility. I wonder if that can be done as effectively on the server.
Re: HTML is object code
#4I think there are blind spots in this argument. The web will never be a stable environment. The technologies that have afforded its existence are notably fluid, and often leaky. These are characteristics that do not fit standard computer science.
To engineers who are accustomed to rigid runtimes, compilers, and so forth, this opinion that HTML is object code will resonate. However, it makes the assumption that by abstracting away the underlying HTML, you stand a better chance of delivering your program to the intended audience. I don't believe this is the case.
If you embrace the fact that HTML/JS/CSS will at best represent an approximation of the interface you intend to create, and leverage this accordingly, you will write code that will more easily adapt to best fit the environment in which it is run.
The power of web technologies is their resiliency. Programs written in compiled or runtime-based languages either run or they fail. Web code is much more dynamic. We should appreciate this characteristic, even when faced the frustrations of immature, misimplemented, and unsupported standards.
Re: HTML is object code
#5This a a major leap. Once you understand that HTML is object code, a whole new world of architectural possibilities opens up to you. Not exactly a new idea either. pg talked about this years ago... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50159
Ron Garret reads or has read HN, so its very possible he knew about that comment.
Re: HTML is object code
#6This a a major leap. Once you understand that HTML is object code, a whole new world of architectural possibilities opens up to you. Not exactly a new idea either. pg talked about this years ago... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50159
Ron Garret reads or has read HN, so its very possible he knew about that comment.
I didn't know about that particular comment, but I did know that this is not an idea that's original with me. It's completely obvious to anyone who has learned Lisp. The only reason I wrote it is that it's apparently not completely obvious to CSS advocates. I seemed to have garnered their attention for reasons passing my understanding, so I thought I'd try to take advantage of that to spread some enlightenment. I have found that sometimes merely stating the obvious somewhere that people can see it and link to it can be useful.
Re: HTML is object code
#7I think there are blind spots in this argument. The web will never be a stable environment. The technologies that have afforded its existence are notably fluid, and often leaky. These are characteristics that do not fit standard computer science. To engineers who are accustomed to rigid runtimes, compilers, and so forth, this opinion that HTML is object code will resonate. However, it makes the assumption that by abs…
What are the blind spots to his argument? I read your comment but didn't see anything particularly in contrast with the post.
Edit: Oh actually I presume you're implying the ability to easily swap stylesheets, and that would be a valid point.
Re: HTML is object code
#8I think there are blind spots in this argument. The web will never be a stable environment. The technologies that have afforded its existence are notably fluid, and often leaky. These are characteristics that do not fit standard computer science. To engineers who are accustomed to rigid runtimes, compilers, and so forth, this opinion that HTML is object code will resonate. However, it makes the assumption that by abs…
What are the blind spots to his argument? I read your comment but didn't see anything particularly in contrast with the post. Edit: Oh actually I presume you're implying the ability to easily swap stylesheets, and that would be a valid point.
Huh? Why would that be a valid point? It's no harder to swap out different kinds of render methods than it is to swap style sheets.
BTW:
> Programs written in compiled or runtime-based languages either run or they fail.
This is simply not true. No matter what you're writing code in, you can write it in a way that exhibits graceful degradation. It's just that some languages make it easier than others.
Re: HTML is object code
#9worth saying that my argument has nothing to do with css vs tables, but I dont agree with this at all, it may be object code to you, but it is always source code to the client, the browser that has to render it, the screenscraper that wants to pull data from it, the client side scripts that want to modify it.
another disagreement I have with it is that even though it may be generated by whatever fancy backend you want, it is still source code to you, there are very few(no?) powerful html generation libraries that let you generate html as an intermediary format, before writing the "html compiler" you need to understand the html you are compiling.
asm is usually referred to as object code because there are very few people comprehend assembly language at the moment, there was a time when asm (or the binary code itself) could be referred to as source code, but those are long past for most people, web toolkits havent matured that far, you can write perfectly great assembly code without knowing any of it though c, you cannot write a program that generates nice web pages without knowing html and css (right now)
Re: HTML is object code
#10I think there are blind spots in this argument. The web will never be a stable environment. The technologies that have afforded its existence are notably fluid, and often leaky. These are characteristics that do not fit standard computer science. To engineers who are accustomed to rigid runtimes, compilers, and so forth, this opinion that HTML is object code will resonate. However, it makes the assumption that by abs…
> if you embrace the fact that HTML/JS/CSS will at best represent an approximation of the interface you intend to create
-- start rant --
Why embrace it ? I see this as a major shortcoming.
It's like it is 1986 again, everybody and their brother coding new and exciting user interfaces on their EGA screens.
Every website works differently. It's a UI nightmare. Throw in the 'approximation' factor and it is understandable why efficiency/productivity goes down the drain.
Because there is no standard menu structure, because there are no standard form validation methods you need to re-implement these basic features, and it seems that there are endless ways to do so.
The software wheel has not been re-invented as many times in the past as it has been on the web.
What should really be embraced is the resilience of the USER, not of the web technologies. End users are the people that have to put up with the messy environment that the architects of the web produce, and they do so admirably.
Take HN as an example. It's hard to even improve the slightest bit over the austere user interface that it offers. A few minor nitpicks, that's about it. And yet, I'm sure if I asked some art director to do a 'makeover' that he'd manage to run it right in to the ground. It would take 10 seconds per page to load and you wouldn't be able to make heads or tales of it. It would look positively fabulous though...
Rigidity is not always a bad thing.
-- end rant --