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It’s time to kill the web app

blog.plan99.net

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Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#551

Post by modeless »

pjmlp wrote: post #78
modeless wrote: post #25

There's one big problem with killing the web: Apple's App Store. You can make all the new platforms you want, but they will never be allowed to replace the App Store for distribution. The web is the only platform that can do distribution outside of the App Store on iOS and Apple will never allow a second one. That means your platform can't have hyperlinks between apps, can't have a no-install experience, can't do jus…

> hyperlinks between apps Sure you can. iOS - https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Ge... Android - https://developer.android.com/training/app-links/deep-linkin... UWP - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/launch-resume/w...

You misunderstand. If the app isn't installed those hyperlinks fall back to the web and not any other platform. You think it's ok to make a new platform where you're required to install every app ahead of time, or clicking any hyperlink just takes you to the web instead? You can't possibly replace the web that way.

There's no way to add a new hyperlinked platform to iOS that's not the web.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#552

Post by ZenoArrow »

cm2187 wrote: post #516
ZenoArrow wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They could learn from Apple's approach with numbers where a worksheet is a canvas on which you can place multiple tables or charts or diagrams" You can do this with Excel also. When was the last time you used Excel? > "There might be 1000 people in the world who use power BI, and only because their IT dept set it up for them." The Power BI features in Excel come ready to use out of the box. Clearly you've never us…

> You can do this with Excel also. When was the last time you used Excel? How do you do that then?

Mark separate areas on the same worksheet as tables, set chart location to be the same worksheet as the tables. If you're bothered by the gridlines those can be turned off. Not much to it really. You can also create dashboard-style content with PowerView (which is one of the PowerBI features built into Excel).

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#553

Post by usr1106 »

Fej wrote: post #433
SwellJoe wrote: post #12

I find this unconvincing. Every negative thing said about the web is true of every other platform, so far. It just seems to ignore how bad software has always been (on average). "Web development is slowly reinventing the 1990's." The 90s were slowly reinventing UNIX and stuff invented at Bell Labs. "Web apps are impossible to secure." Programs in the 90s were written in C and C++. C is impossible to secure. C++ is im…

This might be the biggest dichotomy I've yet seen on HN. An opinion piece voted all the way to the top of the front page (with a clickbaity title, might I add), yet the top comment soundly debunks the article's arguments. Yeah, this is why everybody clicks on the comments link first.

We can assume that many HN readers are closely related to Web programming. Either they do it themselves or their wage gets paid because their employers' business depends on Web apps.

If the article is right that it is close to impossible to hire a Web developer that understands all Web security issues and knows to mitigate them, it does not come as a surprise that there is fierce criticism to the article. It basically says you are doing a hopeless job and your employers' business model is flawed.

I'm not a Web developer, but I find the article very convincing. From what I follow headlines Web programming changes very quickly and the frameworks change all the time. Meaning that smart people are not happy with what is available, writing new stuff. Yet I don't think security has been the primary driver for any new framework. They are still parsing text. So let's see whether the author has any fundamentally different approach in his next post (if anybody remembers to read it)

Disclaimer: I work in embedded and our company advertises to be very secure. I know that our security sucks.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#554

Post by modeless »

generalpf wrote: post #88
modeless wrote: post #25

There's one big problem with killing the web: Apple's App Store. You can make all the new platforms you want, but they will never be allowed to replace the App Store for distribution. The web is the only platform that can do distribution outside of the App Store on iOS and Apple will never allow a second one. That means your platform can't have hyperlinks between apps, can't have a no-install experience, can't do jus…

You can essentially build hyperlinks between apps by opening URLs with their scheme. The target app doesn't even have to be yours.

But the links don't work unless the app is installed. Maybe they fall back to the web if you're lucky. Completely impossible to replace the web with a platform that requires you to install every app ahead of time before links will work.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#555

Post by blub »

SwellJoe wrote: post #326
coldtea wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >*Every negative thing said about the web is true of every other platform, so far. It just seems to ignore how bad software has always been (on average). "Web development is slowly reinventing the 1990's." The 90s were slowly reinventing UNIX and stuff invented at Bell Labs. "Web apps are impossible to secure." Programs in the 90s were written in C and C++. C is impossible to secure. C++ is impossible to secure. I…

"If the 90s "slowly reinvented UNIX", then the correct thing to do would be for the web today to either be a fully modern 2017-worthy technology, or at least take its starting point from where the 90s ENDED, not re-invent the 90s." Since when has an inexperienced mob of people ever done the correct thing on the first try? And, yet, the mob has continued the very fine legacy of those 90s (and 80s and 70s) software dev…

Better for what? The web is getting worse and worse for the users. Before this JavaScript craze it was predictable, bookmarkable, usable and reasonably performant.

Now it's slow, burns your battery, it's full of ads/tracking and anti-patterns like infinite scroll or SPAs and view source is useless.

For me, a site like HN or amazon (with some reservations) is the pinnacle of what the web is able to offer.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#556

Post by smsm42 »

nostrademons wrote: post #134
SwellJoe wrote: post #12

I find this unconvincing. Every negative thing said about the web is true of every other platform, so far. It just seems to ignore how bad software has always been (on average). "Web development is slowly reinventing the 1990's." The 90s were slowly reinventing UNIX and stuff invented at Bell Labs. "Web apps are impossible to secure." Programs in the 90s were written in C and C++. C is impossible to secure. C++ is im…

The security aspect was an interesting part of this piece, because one of the main reasons webapps took over from Windows apps is because they were perceived as more secure. I could disable ActiveX and Java and be reasonably confident that visiting a webpage would not pwn my computer, which I certainly couldn't do when downloading software from the Internet. And then a major reason mobile apps took over from webapps…

> I could disable ActiveX and Java and be reasonably confident that visiting a webpage would not pwn my computer

Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. There were bugs in image processing, PDF processing (some browsers would load it without user prompting), Flash, video decoders, etc. IIRC even in JS engines, though those are more rare. Of course, you could go text-only, but then you couldn't properly access about 99% of modern websites.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#557

Post by hutzlibu »

taternuts wrote: post #500
kowdermeister wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's odd is that this article is so well written that it really clicks with bitter developers who are just confused in the vast sea of alternative technologies with the web. At least that's my guess why there's so many upvotes here. I feel that anyone who rants like this comes from a low level micromanagement world where they have extreme control over everything any they can't have it with web technologies. Fine, b…

I kind of feel like the web and all that's gone into it is similar to all the work that went into the JVM to make it what it is. Kind of ridiculous, the platform we are on and the sheer amount of intelligence and hard work to make it as efficient as it is is astounding. Maybe because constraints breed creativity to do something with the garbage you have. So I honestly think it's better than it's ever been, but at the…

" but at the same time I understand the author's gripes of "This should have been designed with X in mind first and foremost""

Sure thing. If you know exactly what you need and design for that, than the outcome is allways better, than just randomly adding things here and there. So yes, a newly designed web would be something awesome. The thing is just, that it is somewhat complicated to design such a thing in the first place. And then build it. And while you build it, you discover many new things that also absolutely have to go into the design, so you redesign, ...

So in other words, I am curious for his thoughts on a new design and I would welcome it, if it leads to anything. I am just very sceptical, that there is something really awesome and concrete behind it. Vague ideas how to improve things, are allready floating around since the beginning.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#558

Post by blub »

SwellJoe wrote: post #66
pron wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programs in the 90s were written in C and C++. C is impossible to secure. C++ is impossible to secure. Many programs in the 90s, especially of the simple CRUD type, were written in VisualBasic and other RAD tools, as they were known at the time, and later Java. > Is this really a common problem in web apps? Most web apps are built in languages that don't have buffer overrun problems. It's not buffer overrun in the…

"Many programs in the 90s, especially of the simple CRUD type, were written in VisualBasic and other RAD tools, as they were known at the time, and later Java." And, we complained endlessly about how slow and bloated those programs were. So it goes.

I don't rememeber complaints about Delphi or VB being particularly slow.

Java apps were on the other hand slow. Ironically, today we have so many languages producing slow code, that Java is considered fast.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#559

Post by SwellJoe »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #506
SwellJoe wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that and tried to make it clear that I get that, particularly in the paragraph about npm; Perl has the CPAN, Python has had a half dozen package managers (I don't even know which one finally "stuck"), Ruby has gems, but nothing exploded the way npm did. So, what's different? I would argue it's not that JavaScript is a better language (though it's a pretty strong language today). I would argue that it's a better…

> "Also, desktop apps have had the Internet for decades. What have they done with it?" Automatic updates is the answer that springs to mind first. Is there something more they should be doing with the Internet? The only other answer I could think of was 'social connectivity', but in the world of desktop apps, there's no major downside with splitting out social connectivity into separate apps. I don't care if a deskto…

So, this seems strange, to me, and maybe misses the point of the web entirely.

I'm not talking about bolted-on "social" features. There are entire multi-billion dollar industries built on categories of software that did not exist in 1990.

Google Docs isn't merely a word processor (spreadsheet, etc.) with social features...the "chat" is ancillary to the real benefits; it's an entirely different way to work with documents, and that's one of the examples of things that's extremely close to 80s/90s tech; it looks just like a word processor, and people from 1990 would know how to use it. But, it's not the same thing, and before it (and some other online document tools) came along, Word had extremely limited sharing capabilities (requiring ridiculous intranet servers to host the shared docs, and it was basically the same as passing it around via email only with slightly better revision control). That's as close to a traditional app as you can find, and it is still 100% more valuable for being on the web.

What would [ Youtube, facebook, Google Maps, Amazon, craigslist, Netflix, etc. ] look like in a desktop app, and why didn't they exist before they came to the web? The web is a unique (so far) platform with distinct benefits that aren't available to apps in that past. The reverse (desktop/native apps could do things web apps couldn't) was also true until relatively recently, but that's changing, though I don't think the interesting work is in porting native apps to web apps...people will do it, because they can, but the interesting work is in the new things made possible by the web itself.

Re: It’s time to kill the web app

#560

Post by hutzlibu »

Joeri wrote: post #543
hutzlibu wrote: post #270

I rather think, It's time, to completley ignore sensationalistic rant's like this one. First of, killing a technology does not solve anything. It just means less options. So do propose your better solution (and build it) - then we can talk about killing the current thing. But the way it is today, the web works. Definitely not flawless and in large parts really ugly (just browsing with open dev-tools is horrifying, wh…

The whole DOM and script languages in general are ugly? Skip it all and use only WebGL and Wasm. Congratulations, now your app is inaccessible to screenreaders and doesn’t lay out properly on half the devices of the internet. On every platform you have to use the native controls to build a good experience, but the web’s problem is that the native controls are the worst of every app ui platform ever made, so we get la…

"Congratulations, now your app is inaccessible to screenreaders and doesn’t lay out properly on half the devices of the internet."

For most cases, it is quite easy, to provide a simple HTML fallback for that. But yes, it is an issue. But if you do program it right, then it does lay out exactly and perfect on EVERY device, like you intented. (as long as it supports webgl)

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