Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Web Starter Kit

developers.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 218 posts

Re: Web Starter Kit

#131

Post by jacquesm »

ender7 wrote: post #128
jacquesm wrote: post #103

This somehow reminds me of Inception. We have a perfectly functional computer, then we run a browser on it, we download a bunch of HTML, which in turn will download a whole slew of JavaScript in order to create the illusion of an application running natively that offers a subset of what the computer could offer. The only difference is that this web application supposedly runs on 'all devices' except that every web ap…

The shocking, unprecedented, world-changing difference that the web brings is that on the web all you have to do is click a link and your computer downloads, "installs", and runs a program. No manual installation necessary, no upgrades, no installers or wizards. No delay. This process is safe -- the page is sandboxed and can't interfere with the rest of your machine. And these things can be instantly shared! All I ha…

That's the theory.

The practice is that

- you give your precious data to third parties

- that the safety problem now shifts from keeping your computer safe to keeping data in the hands of third parties safe (and this does not always play out in the way we would like, see codespaces for a recent example)

- that even the client side safety is a problem, the 'distribution advantages' have also been recognized widely by the blackhats.

- that we end up being tracked from here to Tokio and that the web is rapidly turning into a series of silos that try to have as little as possible to do with each other.

- that the final experience is almost always sub-par.

The theory is fantastic, but the practice leaves much to be desired.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#133

Post by paul7986 »

ender7 wrote: post #128
jacquesm wrote: post #103

This somehow reminds me of Inception. We have a perfectly functional computer, then we run a browser on it, we download a bunch of HTML, which in turn will download a whole slew of JavaScript in order to create the illusion of an application running natively that offers a subset of what the computer could offer. The only difference is that this web application supposedly runs on 'all devices' except that every web ap…

The shocking, unprecedented, world-changing difference that the web brings is that on the web all you have to do is click a link and your computer downloads, "installs", and runs a program. No manual installation necessary, no upgrades, no installers or wizards. No delay. This process is safe -- the page is sandboxed and can't interfere with the rest of your machine. And these things can be instantly shared! All I ha…

Indeed and I don't understand why many other developers poo poo web applications vs native.

For example we have a web app that syncs audio on any device running safari or chrome. When we demo/ turn a crowd and their devices into a stereo..we just ask them to go to X URL.

They load it up in their device and the host hits play. The audience is not forced to download an app and do a few other steps. It's just load URL and bam everyone's devices become a stereo. Many other ideas in this space can occur.

The web and what you can do it with current day isn't as hobbled as many think!

Re: Web Starter Kit

#134

Post by jacquesm »

paul7986 wrote: post #133
ender7 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shocking, unprecedented, world-changing difference that the web brings is that on the web all you have to do is click a link and your computer downloads, "installs", and runs a program. No manual installation necessary, no upgrades, no installers or wizards. No delay. This process is safe -- the page is sandboxed and can't interfere with the rest of your machine. And these things can be instantly shared! All I ha…

Indeed and I don't understand why many other developers poo poo web applications vs native. For example we have a web app that syncs audio on any device running safari or chrome. When we demo/ turn a crowd and their devices into a stereo..we just ask them to go to X URL. They load it up in their device and the host hits play. The audience is not forced to download an app and do a few other steps. It's just load URL a…

> For example we have a web app that syncs audio on any device running safari or chrome.

That's not a web-app thats a 'safari or chrome' app.

This is more or less a perfect illustration of the the issue at hand here.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#135

Post by pjmlp »

girvo wrote: post #113
pjmlp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

write-once-debug-hack-anywhere is more accurate.

Still beats write-multiple-times-debug-everywhere.

Not when write-multiple-times-debug-everywhere takes considerable less time, due to better tooling.

Please lets not pretend the Web invented how to write portable code.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#137

Post by ossreality »

alain94040 wrote: post #126
jacquesm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That almost reads as a re-invention of the java applet.

What prevents Chrome from running a simulator of Android, and web pages to embed an Android app that will execute, replacing the web page it came from? That would be exactly like the Java applet, except with a much better API (and touchscreen laptops would finally make sense).

What the fuck? There is so much wrong with those two sentences, I'm not sure how you managed to string them together to sound like it describes something real.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#138

Post by sanderjd »

jacquesm wrote: post #131
ender7 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shocking, unprecedented, world-changing difference that the web brings is that on the web all you have to do is click a link and your computer downloads, "installs", and runs a program. No manual installation necessary, no upgrades, no installers or wizards. No delay. This process is safe -- the page is sandboxed and can't interfere with the rest of your machine. And these things can be instantly shared! All I ha…

That's the theory. The practice is that - you give your precious data to third parties - that the safety problem now shifts from keeping your computer safe to keeping data in the hands of third parties safe (and this does not always play out in the way we would like, see codespaces for a recent example) - that even the client side safety is a problem, the 'distribution advantages' have also been recognized widely by…

I think it's both good and bad in theory and both good and bad in practice. Certainly most of the things you list are major downsides, but none of them keep the upside from being (IMO more) major.

I'm you're right that the experience is "almost always" sub-par. I would say "often", but not even "usually". I guess YMMV.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#139

Post by paul7986 »

paul7986 wrote: post #133
ender7 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shocking, unprecedented, world-changing difference that the web brings is that on the web all you have to do is click a link and your computer downloads, "installs", and runs a program. No manual installation necessary, no upgrades, no installers or wizards. No delay. This process is safe -- the page is sandboxed and can't interfere with the rest of your machine. And these things can be instantly shared! All I ha…

Indeed and I don't understand why many other developers poo poo web applications vs native. For example we have a web app that syncs audio on any device running safari or chrome. When we demo/ turn a crowd and their devices into a stereo..we just ask them to go to X URL. They load it up in their device and the host hits play. The audience is not forced to download an app and do a few other steps. It's just load URL a…

What's the distinction? It also runs in Firefox yet the audio is out of sync (as of now). IE doesn't support the necessary tech needed.. Not yet at least.

Also the majority of mobile web users use safari and chrome anyway. Those two browsers to me are the mobile web.

Re: Web Starter Kit

#140

Post by Iftheshoefits »

paul7986 wrote: post #133
ender7 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shocking, unprecedented, world-changing difference that the web brings is that on the web all you have to do is click a link and your computer downloads, "installs", and runs a program. No manual installation necessary, no upgrades, no installers or wizards. No delay. This process is safe -- the page is sandboxed and can't interfere with the rest of your machine. And these things can be instantly shared! All I ha…

Indeed and I don't understand why many other developers poo poo web applications vs native. For example we have a web app that syncs audio on any device running safari or chrome. When we demo/ turn a crowd and their devices into a stereo..we just ask them to go to X URL. They load it up in their device and the host hits play. The audience is not forced to download an app and do a few other steps. It's just load URL a…

Well, for starters, web applications without internet connectivity are, at best, an inferior experience. Secondly, web applications are inferior in terms of both user experience and performance in all but the most trivial applications. Thirdly, developing for the web is actually at least as much of a pain, if not more so, than supporting native code bases for multiple platforms. The difference is that webdevs have shifted that fragmentation from the native SDKs and APIs into the webdev versions of the same thing (JS frameworks, browser support, etc.).
Post reply on HN