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Forking the Web

dillo-browser.org

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Re: Forking the Web

#151

Post by krapp »

Yokohiii wrote: post #107
doublerabbit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript isn't inheritedly bad. It's won that reputation because of bloat. No one codes standard vanilla any more so it's always a framework and the existing are failures. It's shocking how 2mb of JavaScript could be done in 2kb and that JavaScript was never designed to conceive.

It's interesting that you say that JS isn't inherently bad, but everyone uses TS. Is there something bad about vanilla? Either way, my problem isn't generally JS as is, but that it is the only language, the only platform that drives everything. Maybe web assembly can change that, it's not really a fast progress. But that is kind of the problem, replacing JS or introducing alternatives is extremely hard.

There's nothing bad about vanilla. People use TS because that's what startups and businesses prefer, and CS students expect compilers and toolchains and strict typing. Modern JS culture is entirely influenced by Silicon Valley and its hiring principles.

Re: Forking the Web

#152

Post by krapp »

MrVandemar wrote: post #119
deanebarker wrote: post #28

This is what you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)

Gemini is cool for many reasons, but it fails in being able to encode complex documents, or use semantically or visually useful structures common to many documents. There is: - No metadata. - No emphasis. - No citations. - No way to mark up nouns like a person, or a company. - No way to present documents with a complex heading hierarchy past level 3 (for those who argue that more is not necessary, please consider tha…

It succeeds in being so simple that it's useless to 99% of people, which limits its growth and eventual co-opting by capitalism and mainstream culture, and Eternal September.

Not everything has to be for everyone. Gemini is only for a very specific kind of deeply aescetic technological misanthrope that wants basic plaintext with links (basically Gopher++) and finds little else to be useful.

Re: Forking the Web

#153

Post by krapp »

tadfisher wrote: post #89
captn3m0 wrote: post #24

History explains why HTML is now a living standard: https://whatwg.org/faq (Ctrl+F Living and keep reading). > A published version of the standard NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER changes. WhatWG does have per-commit snapshots of the standard. They're just not semantically versioned because it is a living standard. I think what the author wants is something like Gemini instead of HTML, but that has its own set of problems. My…

We should start from a single, sane specification. That is not a descriptor for the Markdown ecosystem.

So just specify a single, sane specification of Markdown as the spec.

Re: Forking the Web

#154

Post by sebastiennight »

tclancy wrote: post #143
sebastiennight wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that AI-generated content is already knifing the Web! I suggest we start spooning the Web instead.

I see you’ve played knifey-spoony before.

TIL. I had never seen that clip, and I am fascinated that we landed there unintentionally. We in this thread just collectively won the Web for today.

Re: Forking the Web

#155

Post by niutech »

rodarima wrote: post #99
captn3m0 wrote: post #24

History explains why HTML is now a living standard: https://whatwg.org/faq (Ctrl+F Living and keep reading). > A published version of the standard NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER changes. WhatWG does have per-commit snapshots of the standard. They're just not semantically versioned because it is a living standard. I think what the author wants is something like Gemini instead of HTML, but that has its own set of problems. My…

> I think what the author wants is something like Gemini instead of HTML, but that has its own set of problems. Yes and no. I want it to be simpler than HTML (which implies less features) but easy to parse. The problem with Markdown and other "text-like" formats is that they are designed to be written by humans (which is good) but complicates the parsing. I guess is more similar to the device independent format used…

What's wrong with MD? Is parsing it more complicated than HTML? Why can't Dillo support rendering MD documents like it supports Gemini?

Re: Forking the Web

#156

Post by tclancy »

sebastiennight wrote: post #154
tclancy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you’ve played knifey-spoony before.

TIL. I had never seen that clip, and I am fascinated that we landed there unintentionally. We in this thread just collectively won the Web for today.

Would have also accepted us landing on an Alanis Morisette reference.

Re: Forking the Web

#157

Post by tekne »

256_ wrote: post #76
tekne wrote: post #54

So... I think scripting is actually really important -- otherwise not only are you stuck with the lowest common denominator of all browsers, but the browsers need to implement a billion bug-prone views -- that map view link mentioned? Now you need a map viewer! What you want is to have scripting with capabilities -- preferably on top of WebAssembly (JS is a sin). The best part is this improves the experience of noscr…

> So... I think scripting is actually really important -- otherwise not only are you stuck with the lowest common denominator of all browsers, but the browsers need to implement a billion bug-prone views -- that map view link mentioned? Now you need a map viewer! In the browser? The map viewer could just be a separate programme entirely, like a PDF viewer, etc. I remember watching rdg (the current main Dillo develope…

Nope -- those are artisanal, hand-written tokens. I suppose a slopatron could have said that just as well though.

I agree with the UNIX philosophy bit, mind you -- modern browsers don't do that and that is bad.

But you should be able to download new components from the Internet without trusting them -- a separate install step is not only tedious, it also might cause you to add new trusted software to your computer.

Going back to the map example -- you want your environment to be able to auto-download the map painter and paint you the map without needing either to manually do that or to trust the map painter.

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