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Write code for the web

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Re: Write code for the web

#141

Post by realusername »

bitwize wrote: post #139
realusername wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only the hottest and coolest are allowed in, permitting anything less would tarnish the club's reputation It's kind of a cult in other words, personally I'm not part of it and not afraid of blasphemy when I see stuff broken.

It would be kind of a cult, if Apple products weren't more pleasant and joyous to use by far than any of the alternatives.

Experience is subjective I'd say, I certainly disagree with that after using the old iPhone of my wife for a year to not make more ewaste. I found the whole thing buggy and confusing, I finally got rid of it after an error loop when installing apps meant that I had to format it again to fix it.

I'm sure most users do love it though, to each their own. There's certainly enough space for all kinds of products and all kinds of consumers.

Re: Write code for the web

#142

Post by jahewson »

dickersnoodle wrote: post #85

Go ahead and write "code for the web" but be prepared to have to choose among a bunch of different JS libraries and CSS design systems depending on who the CTO is for your organization and who has their ear; writing bare-metal HTML/CSS and minimal Javascript won't get you far with the C-suite and you'll be pulling your hair out trying to get things to play nicely with each other (or wind up digging through five or te…

C-suite is too busy migrating to yet another database to worry about frontend.

Re: Write code for the web

#143

Post by w4 »

akkad33 wrote: post #74

What's the most beginner friendly framework for web app development that is lean and not bloated like angular

IMO if your goal is to get up and running fast as a single developer I would suggest that you pick a battle-tested server side framework in a language you already know (Django, Rails, Flask, Laravel, Play, Express, ASP.net, whatever), and use HTMX or its equivalent for the framework you’ve chosen (Hotwire for Rails, Livewire for Laravel, etc.) along with vanilla JS and either Bootstrap or Tailwind for CSS. Keep it simple.

On the other hand, if your goal is to make complex interactive apps, or if you do not want to to launch apps yourself and instead want to be more employable by midsized or large companies, pick up React.

Re: Write code for the web

#144

Post by Someone »

noSyncCloud wrote: post #98
Someone wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or format in general? I use the workaround of Command-A, command-X, command-V aka “Select All, Cut, Paste”. Unfortunately that loses cursor position in the file and gives you a free newline at the end of your content.

You're supposed to end your document with a newline. That's a POSIX standard.

I know, but if your file already ends in one, it adds a second one, if it already ends in two, it adds a third one, etc.

Re: Write code for the web

#145

Post by 65 »

Every day I think about how great the web is, and how much of a shame it is that Apple has tried to destroy as much of the web as possible by getting developers to make iOS apps instead of web apps. If there was no app store the web would be so much better. We'd have more variety in our content consumption, our social media sources, our algorithmic recommendations, our digital experiences.

The web runs on everything, and there are so many great APIs that can be used to make immersive/next gen applications like WebXR. But someone making some WebXR app and charging for it on their own site wouldn't make money for Apple, so Apple never promotes these web apps.

Long term... the web never dies. Companies come in and extract their profit and then die. But the web never dies.

Re: Write code for the web

#146

Post by pmontra »

dickersnoodle wrote: post #95
px43 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that there is a lot of political power inside Google (from the Chrome side of things) working to ensure that PWAs are the primary way that users interact with their phones. It's definitely a point of contention, with pressure on both sides, but there is a balance there. Apple on the other hand is only incentivized to funnel everyone through their App Store, and for some ridiculous reason, app deve…

One really good thing about native apps versus PWAs is that once the user installs a native app and learns the way it works they don't need to learn it again until they upgrade. With anything sourced from the web, the user is at the mercy of the wevdevs, who are at the mercy of the marketing and merchandising wizards who want to shake up the UI to try and goad users into buying more stuff. It's kind of like those rou…

Yes and no.

Yes because for example I'm sticking to K9 mail 5.6 because of the UI change in the next versions. I picked K9 exactly because of the original UI so I'm not using the new one, which is like every other mail client. I saved the APK and I'm installing on any device of mine, also when my fingers slip on the update button. Uninstall and install 5.6 from the file manager.

And no, because if the company behind the app wants to force people to upgrade they'll make the backend incompatible with the old app. Also no, because I don't think that many normal people invest time not upgrading an app because of the UI.

Re: Write code for the web

#147

Post by pmarreck »

idle_zealot wrote: post #105
ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #15

Early on, I made the choice to not to invest in learning native mobile development. I focused all my limited time on the web, and I think that, for once, I made the right choice. Today, one can build amazing stuff for the browser. And, in my very humble opinion, the vast majority of apps should've been WebApps — except for maybe Uber, Google Drive, and games. I worked in the journalism business, and, in my country, t…

> except for maybe Uber, Google Drive, and games I understand Drive working better as a native app; it needs to be able to provide a virtual filesystem to the OS and do background syncing and such. But why Uber? Uber has (or maybe had) a mobile site that works fine for requesting rides and basically everything the app can do. I don't see what value Uber being a native app adds for the user. The same goes for most mob…

Uber could have been coded to a PWA just fine. Parent comment is simply unknowledgeable.

It's funny because the very first thing that Steve Jobs pushed when the first iPhone came out was PWA's, essentially, and not an App Store, which didn't exist yet... and the same API's are still available in Webkit I believe

Re: Write code for the web

#148

Post by oneplane »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #109
dtagames wrote: post #79

This author seems confused about something that he, himself explains. The reason that Apple doesn't care about developers is that they have created such a walled garden cult w/ users that developers are forced to produce products for their platform or they lose half their market -- or more. At my day job in mobile game development (for a small studio inside a large company), we have to fight Apple constantly -- not o…

I think this is because Apple is a hardware company, that uses software to attract consumers. While Microsoft is a software company, that uses hardware to attract consumers.

A better way to describe their differences is that Apple started as an end-user company (and became a services company while at it) where hardware was a means to an end. The products they sell are based around an experience rather than just a bag of components/parts, as those are just the means to an end. It's why their design envelope is the way it is, and why the kept vertically integrating more and more over the decades. In a way, that's where the IWM and SWIM came in so long ago, not because they had to, but because it delivered a better solution to that specific experience than anyone else. (granted, back then using a computer had a very different meaning than it does today but the reasoning still applies)

Microsoft on the other hand is a typical SKU-mover, their business relies on selling 'parts' of someone else's workflow, but later on realised the only way to have a consistent experience is to also start making the hardware. Later on, they tacked on services, but because they kept the "spray the market with SKUs" business strategy it mostly just became 'more', rather than better integrated products for people. It's still "move as much stuff", even if it's not well-integrated. Heck, sometimes it is less-integrated because it enables moving more stuff.

At the end of the day, most large tech multinationals end up manufacturing a lot of stuff over the various layers (hardware, software, firmware, entire devices, individual components etc), but that no longer describes what the company actually "is". (just like it doesn't really describe much to group them together as "commercial money makers", it isn't very specific or useful)

Re: Write code for the web

#149

Post by ysavir »

dtagames wrote: post #79

This author seems confused about something that he, himself explains. The reason that Apple doesn't care about developers is that they have created such a walled garden cult w/ users that developers are forced to produce products for their platform or they lose half their market -- or more. At my day job in mobile game development (for a small studio inside a large company), we have to fight Apple constantly -- not o…

This feels like a different situation than the article author. My impression is that they were concentrating on services where mobile is just one point of access, but make sense in any scenario. Stuff like social networks, dating apps, reddit, stackoverflow, etc. Services that don't depend on the mobile experience whatsoever, unlike, say, Uber, that requires location tracking, or mobile games, which are often designed to be played on the go.

If a business doesn't depend on the mobile experience, then they are still able to offer their services without offering a native app. People on mobile can still access the service through a mobile browser--perhaps not the ideal experience on mobile, but it is still an option. And I think that is the author's point: If there isn't a necessity or dependency on the mobile platform, don't build for it.

Re: Write code for the web

#150

Post by andrewfurey2003 »

sspiff wrote: post #69

>The dependency goes Developer -> Apple and Apple -> Consumer, there is no reverse arrow from Apple to the developers. Is that really true? If Apple is abandoned by large developers (let's say of Adobe, Microsoft calibre), does it not harm their sales or revenue? It certainly isn't universally true. For young or new platforms, like the transition to ARM a few years ago, or the Vision Pro today, Apple needs developer…

"They care for and need to collaborate with corporate dev “partners”, but that's different."
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