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Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

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Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#461

Post by eighthave »

sixQuarks wrote: post #393

If native won, then why didn't "native" desktop software win? Everything on desktop has moved to SAAS and on the web. We're being way too short-sighted here. In 5-10 years, I don't think smartphones will be the primary way we get information anymore. Yes, we will have mobile, but it might be mobile VR, with an infinite canvas. I think the reason native works well on mobile today is simply because there isn't much roo…

Look at Android, the most popular computing platform in the world, and you will see how native has won. Even Facebook and YouTube are native apps on Android.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#462

Post by bphogan »

wwweston wrote: post #408
bphogan wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this argument touted, but if you view source on the HN home page it uses tables and a tag. You do not have to learn a new framework to do things on the web. The browsers all seem to support stuff that's worked for years. The problem is that web developers feel the need to learn new things because they fear getting out of date. "oh, dude, I learned React this weekend. It's hot stuff! You need to learn t…

You don't need to know the new hot stuff if (a) you currently have a job and (b) that job is with an employer where people carefully think about their user needs, product goals, and then pick tech and write code with those needs in mind (much like the article recommends). Otherwise, there's an extent to which you have to accommodate the absolutely rampant fetishization of current fashion for How We Do Things Now Beca…

I disagree. Here's why.

If you're good at web development... that means you understand HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and you understand them at the level you should if you want to call yourself a web developer, then learning whatever framework a hiring manager wants you to know this week is trivial because you understand how the web works.

The problem is a lot of people just learn Angular for a gig. Then they leave 12-18 months later and go learn something else. It's never enough time to actually get good at anything.

And let me tell you... the hiring managers are taking instructions from development teams looking for talent. Those teams often inform management what is the hot new tech that needs to be used. But none of these things that people think they need to know have been so battle-tested yet that they are for sure the "next big thing."

I think experimenting is great. I don't think developers should worry themselves to death over having to keep up with whatever's new this week. I think devs would be better off investing that time in getting really great at the web. Really learn what semantic markup is. Really understand floats, clears, various display types. Really understand the fact that the web, without any JS or CSS, works great on mobile, because when it started, screens were 640px wide, and as a gang of developers, we've layered on boatloads of code to make it not responsive, only to make it responsive again. :)

And then, I believe everyone will be in a much better position to make informed decisions on whether or not "hot new thing this week" is really worth learning.

But what do I know?

Trust me -

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#463

Post by jrbapna »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #105

Currently, best practices are web apps for light user interaction, native apps for heavy user interaction or complex graphical presentation, and hybrids (native app that is essentially a container for a webview) for best-of-both. My money is on hybrids for the near term. A native app with a webview gives you a lot of local control but still leverages the server power and advantages of centralized web apps. The Youtub…

Agreed

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#464

Post by nickpsecurity »

About time they see it! I've been pushing native, Internet apps over web since the beginning. The reason: native apps can be faster, leaner, more flexible, more portable, and more secure. Most things I can do to boost one of these metrics in a native app I can't do in a web app. Let's put this in perspective: my 1998, 200Mhz P2, 64MB RAM machine's native apps did more than modern web apps and with fewer problems. And could connect to people and use presentation layers... just like the web!

One writer argued the reason the Web took off was a standard, usable presentation format (HTML) combined with easy distribution (hyperlinks) and instant updates (connect for freshest version). This spread across both users and platforms. Its continual improvements gave it new features. To this day, the standardization and easy distribution makes it easier to push content to most users via a web browser.

Yet, even big Web companies such as Facebook are switching to Internet-style apps for mobile and Internal use. That's saying something. I guess they don't want around 500 bytes of HTTP overhead to send 1 byte of data. The best solution is a portable platform that solves the presentation, linking, and updating issues that web did. There's a number of older vendors and startups doing this. Hopefully we'll see more take-up and network effects on that side of things.

Note: Anyone still thinking the Web was the best route to go, but wanting native advantages, should Google Tannenbaum's Globe distributed toolkit that supplemented Amoeba distributed OS. They even ported the Web to run on top of it and side-by-side with its applications. Compare work like that to the web of the same time period and you'll see why Web is inherently inferior due to bad (or misappropriated) design. It always will be to a comparable, native product.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#465

Post by swhipple »

yellowapple wrote: post #366
wmil wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before flash could play video, links that open in the media player of your choice were very common. It was a nightmare. Each media player would try to hijack every link type it knew about each time it ran. But there wasn't full compatibility. So you'd click a link, RealPlayer would try to open it, and the player would crash. The major players actively fought open standards, because they each had dreams of controlling…

I wouldn't say "initially"; Flash is still notorious for severe performance issues. That said, so are most native media players nowadays. With that said, I'd be more optimistic of a kind of "media plugin renaissance" like what's being discussed in this day and age than I would be back in the 90's, what with all the insistence on standards-compliance and all that jazz. Eventually, with platforms like the .NET CLR / Mo…

I'm a bit less optimistic. Having different programs for each content type would restrict the developers' control into how they can interact with the users.

Simple playback of video? Not so bad. But if you want to swap the source of the video to your 240p version if the video is buffering 'too slowly'? YouTube-like annotations? Show suggested videos after? Developers aren't going to want to support all environment configurations, so you'd likely end up with a separate supported player for each website.. which doesn't sound better than visiting a webapp tested against the popular web browsers.

Additionally, there's a lot of great research going into browser sandboxing and user-driven permission granting. Allowing content-compatible-but-unsandboxed XYZPlayer to take over content playback negates a lot of the potential benefits.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#466

Post by wwweston »

bphogan wrote: post #462
wwweston wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to know the new hot stuff if (a) you currently have a job and (b) that job is with an employer where people carefully think about their user needs, product goals, and then pick tech and write code with those needs in mind (much like the article recommends). Otherwise, there's an extent to which you have to accommodate the absolutely rampant fetishization of current fashion for How We Do Things Now Beca…

I disagree. Here's why. If you're good at web development... that means you understand HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and you understand them at the level you should if you want to call yourself a web developer, then learning whatever framework a hiring manager wants you to know this week is trivial because you understand how the web works. The problem is a lot of people just learn Angular for a gig. Then they leave 12-18…

I'm a little puzzled about the "I disagree" part -- it sounds like you and I have some similar ideas about how things should be for front-end development!

Perhaps where we part ways is on the question of whether the industry leans towards sensible agreement. My impression is that it doesn't.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#467

Post by bcheung »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #114
datashovel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None taken. It's probably not worth arguing who is right or wrong since none of us can reasonably assume we know what the future will be, but I will say that in general (1) diversity in ecosystems is good. (2) Monopolies are bad. Given only these two basic assumptions I think it's obvious that there should / will be a push for more diversity in mobile, and thus a larger number of platforms to develop for. This can on…

> It's probably not worth arguing who is right or wrong since none of us can reasonably assume we know what the future will be, but I will say that in general (1) diversity in ecosystems is good. (2) Monopolies are bad. Diversity is good, but too much diversity can be detrimental. A one-mobile-OS world is a terrible thing, since there's no need to push forward and improve. A two-mobile-OS world is better, as long as…

There's still competition when you have multiple browsers. Companies might create a proposal for a standard and then implement it in their browser. This may or may not become a standard but usually it is pretty close. In this way we can have the benefits of diversity without the negatives like having to have different skill sets for each platform and then of course there is Apple's walled garden.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#468

Post by sclaxton »

This post is right, but only because web technology is currently a second-class citizen on almost every native environment. If you were to expose system API's directly to the JS layer à la FirefoxOS, then I'm pretty sure you could recreate most "native" apps on web based platform with minimal / narrowing performance hits. Booting to browser technology can only get better with projects like ChromeOS and FirefoxOS pushing the envelope, so why not push for a unified application runtime in the web across devices? Sure, html wasn't made for rich applications, but html5 was...

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#469

Post by JetSpiegel »

briandear wrote: post #437
monsterix wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that native youtube(the one used on mobile) is far better at playback. No, it is not. Playback would get stuck, sound would go away for no rhyme or reason and what not. Better experience? - no - quite the opposite. I got rid [1] of the native nuisance completely. And the experience of search, comment and history on native was simply terrible . Much lesser control on ad-blocking too, and really the ads on YT are som…

If you block the ads, how does the site make money to support your viewing habits?

Are you seriously arguing that Google is not making enough money?

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#470

Post by babby »

thekingshorses wrote: post #233
pavlov wrote: post #28

I feel we’ve gone too far in emulating native apps. Conceding defeat will force us to rethink the web’s purpose and unique strengths — and that’s long overdue. This, a million times. Mobile websites and mobile apps have completely different strengths. The current trend is to develop them both with the same HTML-based toolchains and make them as similar as possible, which ends up being to the detriment of both. Users…

I agree with PPK, but sorry to say this: you are just throwing garbage. > There's nothing more annoying to a mobile user than an "app" that takes 10 seconds to start up Try this on your mobile browser http://hn.premii.com/ Now download this. Android : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn Or iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435 And play with it. Download top 5 native H…

As a user of Android HN apps, premii seems to beat them in all aspects. The major aspect being them actually working properly.

It seems like apps are less maintainable. Right now pretty much all of the Android HN apps are broken in some way, or missing a core feature of the desktop experience.

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