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Write code for the web

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Re: Write code for the web

#191

Post by rubicon33 »

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…

I just wish Web wasn't such a frustrating development experience. While it has improved leaps and bounds in the last decade, I still find it to be suboptimal when compared to native offerings.

Most of that frustration comes down to tooling and more specifically TypeScript. I'm not sure how to succinctly express my pain here but I have found generally that I wrestle with the type system in TypeScript far more than native offerings.

Re: Write code for the web

#192

Post by echelon »

idle_zealot wrote: post #111
echelon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Apple should be regulated to offer the same functionality and performance to the web. Their grip on the most important technology of the century is astounding and harmful. Honestly first-class web mobile installs without hoops and scare walls would be the thing to strive for.

I'm not aware of any scare walls on iOS. On Android is a site is installable a little banner is supposed to pop up and ask if you want to install it. On iOS one has to open the site's share sheet and pick an install option nestled in there somewhere. I suppose that counts as a hoop, but how else would you surface the functionality without it being invasive and annoying for most users? I think a more pertinent problem…

Those are downloads though the app stores. The links merely funnel you though the stores.

Native web downloads of apps are impossible on iPhone/iOS. You have to go through the app store.

Native downloads of apks are possible on Android, but not until you navigate to the hidden settings and enable them. And even then, Google scares users from installing apps this way. Nobody in practice does this. It's effectively not permitted.

Re: Write code for the web

#193

Post by dragonwriter »

rplst8 wrote: post #179
clarkmoreno wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-read that. Microsoft uses hardware to attract customers?

Yeah I don't agree with that assertion either. Microsoft will produce hardware to show the art of the possible with their software. It largely comes out of a situation where the PC/device manufacturers were doing a sh* job of it.

Hardware manufacturers that aren't Microsoft have little reason to take speculative risks that might prove that there's a market for a new configuration of commodity hardware to sell Microsoft’s latest non-commodity software; it's all potential downside with very little potential upside.

Re: Write code for the web

#194

Post by hu3 »

isodev wrote: post #155

Writing for the web of today is merely changing one walled garden for another. We don't live in a state of "free and open web" - it's dominated by two ad companies controlling the browser and social aspects of it. Some would argue that we should keep pumping browsers with native-like APIs to escape the "big bad App Store" while in reality this merely increases the foothold of Big G and their cousin Meta. The issue is…

I don't understand this rationale.

Web apps can be used by many devices, mobile or desktop, iOS, macOS, iPadOS, Android, Windows, and Linux.

If web dominance changes I'm still left with an application that works everywhere.

How is that comparable to native applications that only work in the latest versions of a single OS?

The only reason web apps didn't dominate yet is because Apple can't force them to pay 30% of their revenue plus $100/year per developer license so Apple goes out of their way to nerf web app functionality.

Safari is historically lagging behind in implementing functionality to enable web apps.

Re: Write code for the web

#195

Post by 65 »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #189
65 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? If you don't want to write bare HTML/CSS/JS you can use one of the many frameworks that make writing web apps easier. Even if you hate React or Vue you can use Alpine. If you really hate Javascript you can use HTMX. The web has the best tooling out of any platform because it's the biggest platform. It also has the best documentation... because it's the biggest platform. I don't know what your point is, that web…

Web tooling is still not great. It’s still too low-level. We shouldn’t be writing div over and over with different interacting class properties. Something like SvelteKit’s level of frontend/backend integration feels 5 years too late. Ultimately it seems like the web ecosystem gets trapped in local maxima (“put JS in everything!”) and really seems to avoid actually creating useful, productivity-enhancing primitives. A…

> We shouldn’t be writing div over and over with different interacting class properties.

This is why we have frameworks like React with components, so you don't have to do this.

Even if you don't want to use a framework, you can use Web Components which allow you to create "productivity-enhancing primitives".

Re: Write code for the web

#196

Post by wslh »

mlhpdx wrote: post #166
oneplane wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> Microsoft on the other hand is a typical SKU-mover As far as I can tell there is nothing typical about Microsoft. The sophisticated, deeply-root long game they’ve executed extremely well puts them in a very different place. As a contrast to Apple, the differences are striking - not because of the difference between “bing” and “bling”.

This. The Microsoft long term business execution is amazing despite their resources involved in zillions of failed projects and acquisitions, and some horrible apps (e.g. Teams). It doesn't matter they are a success anyway. Other companies would be buried much before that. Always recommend the book Hard Drive (just in a yesterday's thread) [1]. I need to not forget to add now "Idea Man" [2] by Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder. It shows that the young Bill Gates was already a Titan.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39243044

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Man-Memoir-Cofounder-Microsoft/d...

Re: Write code for the web

#197

Post by jwells89 »

The web is great in theory, but the bare-bonesness of the browser environment makes it an exceedingly unappealing platform for apps specifically when you’re used to developing with a throughly batteries-included experience like you get on Apple platforms.

Where on macOS a highly capable, polished app can be easily be developed with a list of dependencies and sub-dependencies that can be counted on a single hand (and with a little effort, none at all), the equivalent web app has many tens or hundreds because of all the feature gaps needing filling in.

For example, I don’t see why browsers can’t furnish basic list and table views that are capable of efficiently recycling their cells without any (or extremely minimal) JavaScript. It’s not unusual to need to be able to scroll through hundreds or thousands of items without causing the device to chug or run out of memory, and that’s handled nicely out of the box in AppKit, UIKit, SwiftUI, Android Framework, Compose, and probably even Flutter (haven’t checked) but in the browser you’re either pulling in a library or writing custom code for this very basic capability.

And that doesn’t even get into the package management and general tooling situation, where the same fundamental problems doggedly persist even as solutions come and go.

Re: Write code for the web

#198

Post by CharlieDigital »

rubicon33 wrote: post #191
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…

I just wish Web wasn't such a frustrating development experience. While it has improved leaps and bounds in the last decade, I still find it to be suboptimal when compared to native offerings. Most of that frustration comes down to tooling and more specifically TypeScript. I'm not sure how to succinctly express my pain here but I have found generally that I wrestle with the type system in TypeScript far more than nat…

    > I just wish Web wasn't such a frustrating development experience
It's got to be better than building to target two totally different platforms (and even more once you factor in tablets, Windows desktop/Linux/macOS) and then jumping through hoops to get your app packaged, reviewed, and updated consistently onto the target devices.

    > Most of that frustration comes down to tooling and more specifically TypeScript
I think that a lot of folks get frustrated with TS because they are coming at it from the wrong perspective. Instead of thinking about it like a static type system, think about it like "JavaScript with shape definitions". Give this a shot:

https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2023/09/typescript-is-not-a-progra...

Re: Write code for the web

#199

Post by FredPret »

rubicon33 wrote: post #191
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…

I just wish Web wasn't such a frustrating development experience. While it has improved leaps and bounds in the last decade, I still find it to be suboptimal when compared to native offerings. Most of that frustration comes down to tooling and more specifically TypeScript. I'm not sure how to succinctly express my pain here but I have found generally that I wrestle with the type system in TypeScript far more than nat…

That's because you're doing something much harder with web dev. You're making something that works almost everywhere. It's actually insane this is even possible. I bet one day, computronium will run Javascript.

Re: Write code for the web

#200

Post by CharlesW »

wackget wrote: post #182

It was obvious to me that Apple doesn't care about developers the moment I learned that they charge a $99 per year fee to open a developer account. I refuse to pay a company so that I can contribute value to their ecosystem.

The point of the article is that you, as an individual, don't contribute to their ecosystem — that "Apple has no dependency on individual developers".

The way that Apple cares for developers in aggregate is by keeping the ecosystem vibrant. This means giving developers what they need, but not necessarily what they want. It means that when it comes down to what developers want vs. what users (like the author's mom) need, users win.

$99/year is nothing in terms of development costs, but even that token amount will generally keep out the Apple fanboys who just want to download iOS developer releases and should not be let into the developer party.

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