html5 apps != web pages
The Promise of Firefox OS
131–140 of 147 posts
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only just starting? It was pretty apparent after the DHTML craze of the late 1990s fell flat on its face that web apps weren't any threat to native desktop apps. Then the exact same thing happened during the mid 2000s, when AJAX was all the rage. The more recent HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript fad is yet one more revival of the same failed set of ideas.
Because people use desktop apps all the time now...
Are you seriously trying to suggest that people don't?
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but desktop apps are still very widely used by all sorts of people. This includes home users, business users, scientific users, software developers, academics, and so forth.
Even when it comes to web browsing, traffic from non-desktop devices is generally only around 10% to 15% of a site's total traffic these days, for sites that aren't specifically targeting mobile users. The remaining 85% (or more) of traffic is coming from people who are, guess what, using web browsers implemented as desktop apps.
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not at all. Dead serious. If HTML/CSS/javascript had been properly developed we wouldn't even have to deal with all the issues surrounding web dev. All these issues have been addressed by OS development decades ago (e.g. duplex connectivity, UX layout, MVC split, performance, just to name a few), yet we still have to deal with them now. Million of man-hours have been wasted due to them.. So no, this is not trolling.…
Mobile apps have made it possible to write your app once and have it work on multiple platforms? Gee, I must have missed that (as I post to HN, a web app that works on multiple platforms).
I read this on the YC iPhone app. I prefer the native app because it's a vastly more suitable experience than the browser version.
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#134So... it's 2013, and I'm sitting here with my blazingly fast nexus 4, and the web sites I visit are... slow. terrible. broken. spammy. Half of them have 'popups' that try to banner at the bottom of the screen, but end up flailing wilding and either taking up the entire screen, or just helpfully sitting exactly over the middle of the page. A lot of them try repeatedly to direct me to a specific page, or a native app w…
Adblock?
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#135And if your problem is with JavaScript as a language, you can already use a myriad of languages that reliably compile to it. Do you come from a Java background? You’ll probably like Dart, from Google. More of a functional kind of developer? Try ClojureScript, which is an impressive, well-maintained and well-performing implementation of Clojure on top of JavaScript. Coming from Ruby? You’ll be almost at home with Coff…
How about we work on platforms that support more that one language as first class citizens. Is that really such a crazy idea in 2013? You mean like iOS' half-C or Android's half-Java?
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mobile apps have made it possible to write your app once and have it work on multiple platforms? Gee, I must have missed that (as I post to HN, a web app that works on multiple platforms).
You mean a mix of server side generated code full of CSS, JavaScript and HTML hacks so that it behaves in a similar way across multiple browsers?
You mean webkit?
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#137So... it's 2013, and I'm sitting here with my blazingly fast nexus 4, and the web sites I visit are... slow. terrible. broken. spammy. Half of them have 'popups' that try to banner at the bottom of the screen, but end up flailing wilding and either taking up the entire screen, or just helpfully sitting exactly over the middle of the page. A lot of them try repeatedly to direct me to a specific page, or a native app w…
I worked as a front-end developer for an adnetwork for two years, so I take a little responsibility for your experience. I tried my best, but there just wasn't that much interest in getting it right. Here's why I think we're all having a hard time with advertising in mobile. Basically, adnetworks are still learning how to do it right, the same way designers and developers are still learning how to do mobile websites…
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Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about we work on platforms that support more that one language as first class citizens. Is that really such a crazy idea in 2013? You mean like iOS' half-C or Android's half-Java?
Two wrongs don't make a right.
True. I think it's also important to recognize the points against including many languages on a phone, though. A lot of the power of mobile applications derives from their integration with a standardized event system integrated in to the phone. Maintaining such a beast at low latencies and in a well-tested state across multiple languages is not exactly desirable overhead. Then there's the space concern, relative difficulties providing cross-language-platform sandboxing/security, etc...
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi lifeisstillgood, I am one of the core Persona developers. Persona is a pretty awesome project with very ambitious goals. We obviously want to see growth explode and are working hard to make Persona great for both users and site operators. Persona's growth has been steady, primarily driven by newly developed sites. We hope that as the user base grows and support for the BrowserID protocol is natively built into the…
Thank you - I have just joined the group. I agree - Persona is an awesome project - and I like anything that is going to take the pain of managing passwords away from me. I am most interested in python / wsgi integration - if any of your collegues are working on this I will be very happy to contribute.
Mozilla uses django for many of our web apps, and there's a django app that integrates Persona (formerly called BrowserID). Take a look at the repo, and if you have questions, ask in the #webdev IRC channel mentioned in the readme.
Re: The Promise of Firefox OS
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've thought about this a lot myself. The language issue ultimately leads you to conclude that we need a browser with a built-in VM, rather than a built-in scripting language. It makes so much more sense, as a clean and elegant solution. "I know! I'll make my own new browser with an embedded VM and newer cleaner APIs, and revolutionize the web! It'll be amazing, allowing native-like performance from the browser. WebG…
I've also been thinking about the same sorts of things lately. Mostly I've been thinking about the GUI issue on the web. CSS and the DOM are just not up to the task of creating a responsive app GUI. The incredibly complex set of nested CSS rules that need to be calculated and applied for each reflow is a nightmare. I personally think the DOM is a fine way to define an app structure. GUIs are after all containers and…
I've often wondered about replacing HTML/CSS/JS with QtQuick and QML. Thoughts?