Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by rawTruthHurts » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:37 AM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #314

The web already won. When was the last time someone told you about an app idea and you had any vision of a Win32 (or WPF) app? The web is the defacto app platform for desktop today. Sure, there are some legacy and niche apps that are native on desktop, but mostly everything new is web based on desktop. Mobile is a different story, but I think its due mostly to the fact that mobile HW is still changing rapidly. New se…

Yep. The Firefox version of Photoshop really cuts it. Not to mention the 3dsMax one.

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

#512

Post by stephenr » Fri, May 29, 2015, 8:50 PM UTC

rockdoe wrote: post #510

stephenr wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Firefox, back up your profile. that's hardly the same as having a file i can copy and use anywhere. > If you clear it intentionally then why should it persist? In Safari at least, "local storage" is cleared when clearing other data like cookies etc. I would imagine that's not unique to Safari. You also failed to cover the concept of "the OS is re-installed" or "a new device is purchased". "Backup your firefox pr…

>"Backup your firefox profile" is an unbelievably short-sighted suggestion - am I supposed to keep transporting a Firefox profile around forever? Yes? It's like asking whether you should keep your homedir or Windows Roaming User folder around forever. If you want your data and/or settings, you do. And both of those fit the description in your last line pretty well. You're offended at the suggestion but it's the same…

> It's like asking whether you should keep your homedir or Windows Roaming User folder around forever.

No it isn't. A Firefox profile is a folder full of a mishmash of data, the vast majority of which is inherently not data I want to keep.

I deliberately don't keep my entire home folder when I re-install/upgrade OS X. I get much better results taking a short time to re-set a few preferences than deal with the effects of a carried-over ~/Library folder.

That's exactly what the Firefox profile folder is like - it's not just user data from local storage, it's fucking cookies and crash dumps and shit. Why would I ever want to keep that stuff forever?

> it's the same way it works in native apps in reality

It just really isn't, and it's not surprising that you chose to ignore all the other issues I raised with this suggested "solution".

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

#513

Post by AnonJ » Sat, May 30, 2015, 4:42 AM UTC

This argument is really rough. Many programmers surely will only want the content, but websites are interacting with the whole world, and they have business models which cater to the general public. If they only exist to serve simple, static contents then the companies running them might add well just shut up shop. Why even bother spending expenses maintaining such stuffs if they don't appeal to the general public and easily call them to actions anyways.

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

#514

Post by MidoAssran » Sat, May 30, 2015, 4:49 AM UTC

Interesting points you bring up. A point to consider is that many companies, even surprisingly many of the Fortune 500s, have very dedicated IT teams to support a web infrastructure, and so choose to make their applications using web frameworks to emulate native. I give you that it's not ideal, but when looking at the bigger picture, it just makes sense to use web rather than to force them to spend months getting ready for native support; so there might be a place for each use case.

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

#515

Post by mattLummus » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

JetSpiegel wrote: post #469

briandear wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not at all, but it is still their main source of revenue.