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Stop pushing the web forward

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Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#91

Post by dkersten »

dikaiosune wrote: post #31
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…

Was this in reply to my top-level comment? Looks like this ended up a sibling instead. In reply to your comment: Perhaps, and I lack the experience and evidence to contradict you. I work solo on small to mid size projects that are mostly back-end. But I am fairly confident that with the large number of mid+ size web app projects we would be seeing a migration back to more native apps if the overhead is actually great…

The company I work for has a web app. Has had for years, yet have rebuilt the exact same functionality a further three times as native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile.

Presumably the overhead of maintaining multiple native apps (on top of the existing web app) is still cheaper for them than making the web app work for mobile.

As a further anecdote, I personally don't know many people who like using web apps on their phones. I certainly don't. On my phone I use my browser to read HN and other articles and native apps for everything else. Most people I know are the same.

Re: your edit - finding is no different than your web app. Downloading, your web app downloads too only everytime I load it instead of once. When installing from one of the app stores, I've never found downloading or installing any harder than clicking a button. Installing, sure, but only because the term sounds like a crazy heavyweight thing to us. The process (for mobile apps, not desktop) is generally a single click that you do once.

The thing that web wins at here is that it eliminates even these few clicks, and since you don't "install" it, people feel safer and happier.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#92

Post by JustSomeNobody »

Klathmon wrote: post #76
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If it can do everything the user wants then what is the issue? Just because it's been done before it's the wrong answer?

My reply was a bit ambiguous and snarky.

I don't believe it's the wrong answer if it works. But people are commenting about moving the web forward to run apps in browsers and all and so there are parallels with what we did in the 80's. That's really what I was getting at. Nothing in computing is ever really new.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#93

Post by Johnny555 »

Native apps will always be much better at native than a browser

That may be true but I don't want to install dozens of applications, I like being able to run apps in my browser. Google Docs is great... 99% of the functionality i could ever use in an office app, and no need to install software (if it even runs on my platform).

And I absolutely hate browsing the web on my phone to have every site pop up a "hey, try our mobile app, its soooo much better" message that gets in my way.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#94

Post by 0xFFC »

I think the answer to all question/problem get mentioned in comments is WebOS or specifically ChromeOS.you have web cross platform app,without huge cost of browser on top of os(so vendor can optimize the software stack very well).only problem with ChromeOS is non organized native app development.which could be solved by WebAsm.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#95

Post by ForHackernews »

scholia wrote: post #81
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?

I think it's a silly distinction to make. Native applications (meaning software running on a computer, outside a browser sandbox) have always offered a smoother, more comprehensive user experience.

That doesn't mean users get no value from the web, or that they're so spoiled by fast transitions in Microsoft Word that they won't want to use a website.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#96

Post by the8472 »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #58
rtpg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but how would making browsers the operating system cause the incompatability problems to reappear? I think this is massively ignoring the realities: - there's almost no native-feeling cross-platform UI library for native apps at the moment - There's a standard for most things happening in a browser, which means that things look pixel-perfectly the same on a huge amount of browsers. Differences among current…

There's a standard for most things happening in a browser There's POSIX, too. In practice, divergences are plentiful. Differences among current browsers are more among performance and experimental features The fact that are huge web tables meticulously documenting feature compatibilities across browsers implies differently. Besides, a lot of web standards are done post-facto. I don't see the situation as being any be…

> There's POSIX

POSIX + a standard library for UI components + containerization + webassembly would be the "correct", cleanroom solution in my opinion.

If you want to build and run "native but untrusted" applications on the user's computer on heterogenous environments and can't anticipate which APIs someone is going to need next. Well then give them access to a walled-off part of the computer.

Same-origin policy? Replace it with a l7 firewall (+ some DNS security manifests?)

No cookies/local storage? That just means spinning up a new container every time the user visits.

No audio playback? Don't map the sound device into the container.

Etc.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#97

Post by parasubvert »

golergka wrote: post #63
rgbrenner wrote: post #21

We need a break. We need an opportunity to learn to the features we already have responsibly — without tools! Also, we need the time for a fundamental conversation about where we want to push the web forward to. How about this.. YOU take a break. Stop trying to keep up with every little new thing that comes out. Wait a while. And you'll get exactly what you want. The tools that it turns out were a bad idea will die.…

By the way, one of the best websites I know, c2.com (I don't know anything about this consulting company, but these pages constantly come up in search results and offer best advice possible), manages to deliver the best content with HTMLs that mostly can be read in Mosaic and Lynx.

That's the original Wiki, by Ward Cunningham. He invented it. Currently read only, unfortunately, due to a hack last year.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWeb

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#98

Post by adrusi »

rtpg wrote: post #30
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'm sorry but how would making browsers the operating system cause the incompatability problems to reappear? I think this is massively ignoring the realities: - there's almost no native-feeling cross-platform UI library for native apps at the moment - There's a standard for most things happening in a browser, which means that things look pixel-perfectly the same on a huge amount of browsers. Differences among current…

You're right, there's no native-feeling cross-platform UI library for native apps, and the browser isn't poised to be an exception to that. Apps made in the browser don't feel native. The closest to native-feeling app built in a browser that I can think of is Atom, which feels like a more sluggish version of Sublime (a Qt app). Neither of them feel as native as truly native apps do on their native platforms. Not nearly as native as Gedit on GNOME, Kate on KDE, Notepad++ on Windows or TextMate/BBedit on Mac.

And they never will because the native feel comes from paying close attention to the design language and behavior of your app with respect to the host platform. If a cross platform app really paid close enough attention to these things to make a difference, they may as well completely rewrite their UI layer on all platforms.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#99

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rgbrenner wrote: post #21

We need a break. We need an opportunity to learn to the features we already have responsibly — without tools! Also, we need the time for a fundamental conversation about where we want to push the web forward to. How about this.. YOU take a break. Stop trying to keep up with every little new thing that comes out. Wait a while. And you'll get exactly what you want. The tools that it turns out were a bad idea will die.…

Do you know PPK and his work? He's been at the cutting edge of web-standards and implementations for at least 12 years if my memory serves me correctly.

>And you'll get exactly what you want. //

If he wants to avoid the web being badly negatively effected by short term views of current browser companies and standards bodies then he won't get what he wants by sticking his head in the sand and ignoring the direction he sees things going.

If this were the writing of a small time web-dev (like myself) then I think your comment would work; but I'm assuming PPK is coming from a position of experience that's given him an almost unique overview of the direction of browser and standards development vs. the historic "feel" and integrity of the web.

PPK is doing the equivalent of saying "let's stop and ask for directions [on our car journey]" and you're saying "no, let's just keep driving I'm sure we'll get to where we want to go".

He's up against it as, to my mind, cautious development doesn't serve the needs of corporations and so won't happen.

>"We’re pushing the web forward to emulate native more and more, but we can’t out-native native." (OP) //

I find it funny that web pages are trying to be native apps and many mobile apps are shipping when they're ostensibly just web pages.

tl;dr I think the OP has more to say, and that it's more important, than you're giving credit for.

Re: Stop pushing the web forward

#100

Post by ForHackernews »

apalmer wrote: post #61
pikzen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's almost no native-feeling cross-platform UI library for native apps at the moment Xamarin.Forms is the closest I can think of. Qt too, kind of. >The browser is basically what the JVM tried to be, a write once work anywhere solution that is pretty well sandboxed. It's miles better than pretty much every other cross-platform piece of tooling in existence. It's true, the browser succeeded as a working everywhere…

I get where your coming from, and agree with a lot of what you say. BUT, Fundamentally... >The web as an application delivery medium is a failed experiment, patched up on all sides and held together with 40MB of polyfills on every page. Is just not a true statement. Or rather, the web sucks, but it is the only cross platform UI experiment that has 'worked' on any significant level.

> the only cross platform UI experiment that has 'worked' on any significant level.

Users do not care about cross-platform compatibility, at all. They only care that it works on their platform. As developers, we should be cheering for a diversity of widely-popular, mutually-incompatible platforms because there will be more work for developers to port the iOS version to Android to Windows, etc.

The only people who should be upset about cross-platform compatibility issues are budget-conscious managers and unfortunate OSS devs.

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