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Web Starter Kit

developers.google.com

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Re: Web Starter Kit

#81

Post by _broody »

lukifer wrote: post #48
fidotron wrote: post #13

The web is now hamstrung by the HTML/CSS layout model more than anything else. The hackery required to attempt to imitate native mobile apps is horrific. Google would be better off throwing efforts into a new layout engine leveraging raw JS and WebGL, but with a sane API, than these continuous attempts to push HTML into places where it doesn't work. If they don't lead it I can see someone else doing it in such a way…

In particular, the broken implementation of CSS position:fixed on all mobile platforms is probably the major stumbling block preventing app-like interfaces for the mobile web. I have been frequently tempted to try to build a canvas-based interface from scratch, but I suspect even that would run into the same problems.

I think app-like interfaces on the web are a pipe dream at this point, anyways. Attempts to emulate native interfaces inevitably get stuck in a java-like uncanny valley that's nearly as hard to get out of as it would be rewriting native apps for each platform from scratch.

For all the talk of web apps as credible alternative to native ones, the fact is the current toolchain is unlikely to ever be good for anything more than paper-thin clients. Ecmascript 6 doesn't fix this, Ecmascript 7 won't fix it. HTML5 tags are a worthless collection of semantic sugar when we desperately need a solid component library instead of implementing everything from scratch.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#82

Post by simonw »

pjmlp wrote: post #17
fidotron wrote: post #13

The web is now hamstrung by the HTML/CSS layout model more than anything else. The hackery required to attempt to imitate native mobile apps is horrific. Google would be better off throwing efforts into a new layout engine leveraging raw JS and WebGL, but with a sane API, than these continuous attempts to push HTML into places where it doesn't work. If they don't lead it I can see someone else doing it in such a way…

Web was never meant for applications. Other hypertext models like Hypercard and Xerox PARC experiments had better support. I really hope that we can sort out this mess some day. I personally like apps are making the network more relevant than the Web. What matters are communication protocols.

"Web was never meant for applications"

And yet the web is a better platform for applications than anything else.

Zero installation, linkable states via URLs, universal back button support, accessibility hooks, multi-device, write-once-run-anywhere and an enormous variety of available programming languages.

All of that, AND it's built on top of truly open standards that aren't controlled by a single company and can't be killed by anyone (something VB6, Flash and BlackBerry developers should really appreciate).

Re: Web Starter Kit

#83

Post by dminor »

protonfish wrote: post #49
fidotron wrote: post #13

The web is now hamstrung by the HTML/CSS layout model more than anything else. The hackery required to attempt to imitate native mobile apps is horrific. Google would be better off throwing efforts into a new layout engine leveraging raw JS and WebGL, but with a sane API, than these continuous attempts to push HTML into places where it doesn't work. If they don't lead it I can see someone else doing it in such a way…

This is the same complaining I always hear from people who don't want to learn how to use HTML and CSS. Yes, it is different than what you are used to. Yes, it will take some time to learn and some of that will be uncomfortable. But that does not mean that that HTML and CSS are bad. I know this because I successfully build mobile sites that look and function fine and I assure you it works. You say "hackery is require…

> After a little practice, it can even get easy.

Just googling for "vertical align text css" should be enough to tell you that different layout is needed. Why shouldn't there be a layout model that makes it easy to do the things people are trying to do?

The idea that we shouldn't even attempt to create a better one is silly.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#84

Post by simonw »

_broody wrote: post #81
lukifer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In particular, the broken implementation of CSS position:fixed on all mobile platforms is probably the major stumbling block preventing app-like interfaces for the mobile web. I have been frequently tempted to try to build a canvas-based interface from scratch, but I suspect even that would run into the same problems.

I think app-like interfaces on the web are a pipe dream at this point, anyways. Attempts to emulate native interfaces inevitably get stuck in a java-like uncanny valley that's nearly as hard to get out of as it would be rewriting native apps for each platform from scratch. For all the talk of web apps as credible alternative to native ones, the fact is the current toolchain is unlikely to ever be good for anything mo…

"HTML5 tags are a worthless collection of semantic sugar when we desperately need a solid component library"

What's your opinion of Web Components?

Re: Web Starter Kit

#85

Post by diminish »

malandrew wrote: post #72
diminish wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the development frameworks called native, are built on the precursor of html, namely 90s and earlier native app apis, on guis, and they arents perfect abstractions for apps neither. Current native zeitgeist gets its allure mostly from being closer to hardware and is the assembly to C. Otherwise all major mobile GUI APIs are naive attempts by busy developers to imitate, layouts, stylesheets,....

"precursor of html" please elaborate. HTML is based on XML, a language with two primitives, strings and children. Why would you ever use that as an interface if you want something to ever be performant? What we need is a retain-mode scene graph, where some of the nodes on the scene graph can be HTML documents (with URIs). Developers don't want a one-to-one relationship between the window object and documents. They in…

What I meant, was initially people were pixel-painting fixed screens and 2D/3D graphic programming evolved as one branch, and GUI app frameworks evolved as another (MacApp anyone?). If you look at earlier Mac/Windows/X app frameworks and iOS/Android app frameworks, you'll see that the latter is a more naive and easy solution to the same problem without the burden of multiple docs, windows and massive multitasking. I'm talking about windows, views, user interface controls, dialogs, textboxes, styling and finally inputs (events). HTML/CSS/JS is a string based natural solution to the same problem.

Finally, current native programming does not get its power from any advanced technique or technology but only due to its privileged position in an underpowered computing device with a smaller screens and newer touch input methods and hardware. This way, mobile GUI API designers didn't have most of the problems of large screen OS framework API designers had. When I look at their APIs, they are too simple, nothing fundamentally new.

So as mobile devices get better in general computing, a post html world may come back, with stringified description of UI elements.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#86

Post by adamnemecek »

marknutter wrote: post #79
adamnemecek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that it's more complex, it's that you can do things with native layouts that you'd have to use JS to achieve on mobile.

Good thing browsers run JS, eh?

Programming is all about abstraction management. Doing layouts with JS is using the wrong abstractions. CSS was originally conceived for doing document layouts but it's less suitable for web-application layout. We can leave the discussion here, if the article I posted didn't convince you, nothing probably will.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#87

Post by fred_durst »

fidotron wrote: post #13

The web is now hamstrung by the HTML/CSS layout model more than anything else. The hackery required to attempt to imitate native mobile apps is horrific. Google would be better off throwing efforts into a new layout engine leveraging raw JS and WebGL, but with a sane API, than these continuous attempts to push HTML into places where it doesn't work. If they don't lead it I can see someone else doing it in such a way…

When having these Native vs Other discussions, is it possible you could use something more specific than the word native? It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For example is declaring layouts in an XML file in an Android app considered native in this case? I've heard others say that Android apps that run on the Dalvik JVM should not be considered native. Maybe you are talking more about Cocoa or Windows?

Re: Web Starter Kit

#88

Post by skybrian »

dminor wrote: post #83
protonfish wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same complaining I always hear from people who don't want to learn how to use HTML and CSS. Yes, it is different than what you are used to. Yes, it will take some time to learn and some of that will be uncomfortable. But that does not mean that that HTML and CSS are bad. I know this because I successfully build mobile sites that look and function fine and I assure you it works. You say "hackery is require…

> After a little practice, it can even get easy. Just googling for "vertical align text css" should be enough to tell you that different layout is needed. Why shouldn't there be a layout model that makes it easy to do the things people are trying to do? The idea that we shouldn't even attempt to create a better one is silly.

The question is whether you start over or make incremental improvements. Supporting a new layout doesn't seem like the kind of change that's worth starting over for.

That said, I'm all for experimenting.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#89

Post by kinlan »

graedus wrote: post #31
flipcoder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, with Firefox on Linux. The grid shows gaps like the web page is missing icons when you stretch the window width far enough.

For me (Chrome, Win7), the gaps are explained by "PageSpeed Insights Reporting" and "SASS Support" wrapping down to the next row for all but a small range of horizontal viewport widths.

Thanks, I'll get the team to look at this.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#90

Post by just2n »

dminor wrote: post #83
protonfish wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same complaining I always hear from people who don't want to learn how to use HTML and CSS. Yes, it is different than what you are used to. Yes, it will take some time to learn and some of that will be uncomfortable. But that does not mean that that HTML and CSS are bad. I know this because I successfully build mobile sites that look and function fine and I assure you it works. You say "hackery is require…

> After a little practice, it can even get easy. Just googling for "vertical align text css" should be enough to tell you that different layout is needed. Why shouldn't there be a layout model that makes it easy to do the things people are trying to do? The idea that we shouldn't even attempt to create a better one is silly.

We already have one.

http://jsfiddle.net/gJP9k/

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