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Stop pushing the web forward

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Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#81

Post by scholia »

ForHackernews wrote: post #19

> Interestingly, Microsoft added a similar feature to IE4, and deprecated it as of IE9. The idea didn’t catch on because back then nobody wanted to emulate native apps (which didn’t exist), and therefore nobody particularly cared if the users had to briefly wait for the next page. > native apps (which didn’t exist) Does this writer believe that nobody installed software on their computers before the iOS app store ope…

The usual meaning is "native apps" for smartphones, as opposed to traditional programs like PhotoShop and AutoCAD.

It's a broadbrush description but almost everybody gets it.

Would you like to offer a simpler, shorter and more accurate way of making this distinction?

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#82

Post by rocky1138 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #62

I don't think web moved forward. There are some fun features, but the only thing I really see in last years is HTML video replacing Flash. Otherwise it's the same web as it was 10 years ago.

From a technology standpoint I agree with you, except that images have gotten larger in file size.

Socially, we've lost the "anything is possible" vibe that the early web had, thanks to oppressive governments and spying.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#83

Post by jebblue »

teacup50 wrote: post #59
rco8786 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is shortsighted. In 5-10 years browsers will be more Virtual Machine than Web Browser. You can almost argue that they already are. As browsers and phones get more and more performant, the idea of emulating native apps in the browser won't have the performance stigma attached to it. This same thing played out with Java et. al. It was dismissed for being non-performant when compared to C/C++(aka native cod…

The JVM itself got faster -- and in many places, relies on native code for particularly expensive functionality -- but it's still unusable for end-user applications because: 1) The long load time / hotspot JIT overhead when starting applications. 2) The large memory overhead of the Sun/Oracle GC's reserved heap. To some degree, Dalvik solved some of these issues, but has also retained the (very necessary) escape-hatc…

Minecraft alone shows your first two points are not valid. Write a hello world app in Java, the startup time is miliseconds, the memory is not humongous.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#84

Post by tonyarkles »

mobiuscog wrote: post #23
cognivore wrote: post #13

"However, web apps also allow organizations to write once for many platforms in a much more seamless way than most cross-platform native toolkits I've seen." Does it? I used to think that. Until every medium-complexity or worse web project I've worked on took forever as we went through all the different browsers and OS's and now mobile and tablets and responsive and OMG just give me a decent native app tool now pleas…

It certainly allows (some) organisations to 'believe' this. Unfortunately.

Ahhh, I'm with you, but not with you.

There's a lot of Line of Business apps that can be written really easily as webapps. Right now my default toolkit for doing those is: Rails, Angular, Foundation. These are often pretty much just slightly-interactive forms and reports, and fit reasonably well within the browser model.

These aren't profit-centric apps, these are cost-reduction apps. One of the best parts about web apps in this context is that they reduce the deployment and management costs. You don't have to worry about supporting legacy versions, nor about deploying new versions of the apps to every machine in your organization. They don't have to be perfect or beautiful, they just have to save more time and money than they cost to build and maintain.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#85

Post by zhte415 »

digi_owl wrote: post #34
ixtli wrote: post #8

> But why do web developers want navigation transitions? In order to emulate native apps, of course. If we're doing unpopular opinion time, I think this is the real issue that no one wants to talk about. I'm all for whatever feature development the community can standardize. Apple, google, mozilla, and etc. all have smart people working for them and when they cooperate things seem to work out fine. The problem is try…

Back before the PC, didn't IBM and some other mainframe companies try to lease out terminals? This in that you could get a terminal on your home desk, that either via dedicated line or basic dialup would connect to a mainframe where you paid minute or something? In a sense the web browser, and SaaS, has become a reinvention of that...

Still do, big business. Any data dependent system. Reuters / Bloomberg / Datastream. Rented out terminals of a centralized system.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#86

Post by smacktoward »

digi_owl wrote: post #34
ixtli wrote: post #8

> But why do web developers want navigation transitions? In order to emulate native apps, of course. If we're doing unpopular opinion time, I think this is the real issue that no one wants to talk about. I'm all for whatever feature development the community can standardize. Apple, google, mozilla, and etc. all have smart people working for them and when they cooperate things seem to work out fine. The problem is try…

Back before the PC, didn't IBM and some other mainframe companies try to lease out terminals? This in that you could get a terminal on your home desk, that either via dedicated line or basic dialup would connect to a mainframe where you paid minute or something? In a sense the web browser, and SaaS, has become a reinvention of that...

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing

A popular (for the time) example of this type of service was CompuServe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe). I had my first online experience connecting to CompuServe on my family's home PC, back in 1985.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#87

Post by raintrees »

This viewpoint reminds me of an Attorney's, who used to be a City Attorney: He felt that for every law passed, two should be struck from the books.

Or taxes: I have heard it said a politician rarely finds a tax they want repealed.

Wouldn't focusing on core web infrastructure for a period of time encourage addressing shortcomings, like the current state of security (and sometimes lack thereof)?

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#88

Post by cwbrandsma »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #54
rco8786 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is shortsighted. In 5-10 years browsers will be more Virtual Machine than Web Browser. You can almost argue that they already are. As browsers and phones get more and more performant, the idea of emulating native apps in the browser won't have the performance stigma attached to it. This same thing played out with Java et. al. It was dismissed for being non-performant when compared to C/C++(aka native cod…

Oh, so a dumb terminal. Ok. It's 1980 again.

1. Dumb terminals never really left us. They are in active use all over. 2. The current web trend is using more of the browser CPU, as opposed to the server CPU. Heck, I have entire apps that don't call the server after load at all. I don't remember being able to execute code in a dumb terminal (possibly you could...I just don't remember it).

Dang it, now I'm nostalgic for playing MUDs on a VT1000 in the 90s.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#89

Post by warbastard »

ixtli wrote: post #8

> But why do web developers want navigation transitions? In order to emulate native apps, of course. If we're doing unpopular opinion time, I think this is the real issue that no one wants to talk about. I'm all for whatever feature development the community can standardize. Apple, google, mozilla, and etc. all have smart people working for them and when they cooperate things seem to work out fine. The problem is try…

I think he's wrong in his assumption that navigation transitions are being used just to emulate native apps. They are being used because they provide a usability benefit. A navigation transition can demonstrate a lot to a user about hierarchy and flow [1]

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/design/spec/animation/meaningful-tr...

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#90

Post by jeena »

rco8786 wrote: post #45
ixtli wrote: post #8

> But why do web developers want navigation transitions? In order to emulate native apps, of course. If we're doing unpopular opinion time, I think this is the real issue that no one wants to talk about. I'm all for whatever feature development the community can standardize. Apple, google, mozilla, and etc. all have smart people working for them and when they cooperate things seem to work out fine. The problem is try…

I think this is shortsighted. In 5-10 years browsers will be more Virtual Machine than Web Browser. You can almost argue that they already are. As browsers and phones get more and more performant, the idea of emulating native apps in the browser won't have the performance stigma attached to it. This same thing played out with Java et. al. It was dismissed for being non-performant when compared to C/C++(aka native cod…

But the only languages available are HTML, CSS and JavaScript which are just more than bad for application development because of so many reasons.

I would rather see something like Ubuntu Touch tries where they write the frontend with QML and you can have backends in C++ for speed.

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