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HTML is the Web

petelambert.com

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Re: HTML is the Web

#91

Post by notoverthere »

ktpsns wrote: post #89

I recently used Semantic-UI ( http://semantic-ui.com/ ) in a project. Semantic-UI is a web framework where "semantic" means there are human readable class names like Compared to Bootstrap, Semantic-UI ships with high level "components" ("views", "modules", "collections"). And here comes the ugly: They all abuse HTML as if it was 2008. Div soup everywhere. Even lists have to be formatted as Divs, something I havent do…

Oh my! I didn't believe that code example you just gave, so I had to go look it up for myself. I'm astounded.

https://semantic-ui.com/elements/list.html#list

Re: HTML is the Web

#92

Post by ktpsns »

lmm wrote: post #74
nickjj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My contrary opinion is that the actually important feature of the web is the URL, and the important feature of the browser is that it provides a sandboxed platform for running untrusted code without a builtin "walled garden moral police". Flash tried to do this 15-20 years ago. Flash was basically "here's a canvas, do whatever you want within reason". It had its use cases back then but the general web vastly prefer…

The general web loved Flash for cases where you needed an application rather than a document. It wasn't appropriate for everything, and it was unfortunately very difficult to mix Flash with general HTML, but in many ways it was better than today's web for both creators and end users.

Second that.

For the user, flash applets where super easy to block in general and to whitelist on pages where you wanted to use that particular flash application. Basically the same was true with Java. And for a certain extend JavaScript -- until the ugly DHTML menus arised and websites stopped to be usable without JavaScript.

Nowadays there are only two options: Either you block JavaScript --- and percieve a 1995's web view, in general --- or you let it run on your browser, having tons of programs running which you probably don't want (ads, tracking, that particular application that replaces flash).

Re: HTML is the Web

#93

Post by TuringTest »

flohofwoe wrote: post #60
cesarb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the use of "installing" an application these days? Once I "install" an application, for example libreoffice: - It works even if I do not have a working Internet connection (or back in the day, even if I had removed the original media from the drive); - It works even if the original is gone. That is, by "installing" an application, I gain a permanent, offline, working copy of it.

Most of this isn't a given anymore with software vendors going subscription-only like Adobe's Creative Cloud. On the other hand, PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) also work in offline mode without a "traditional" installation step.

Progressive Web Apps that work in offline mode are still installed when first accessed through the browser; they just don't need to go through the "traditional" method (installer, app store).

"Traditional" applications that are subscription-only are only partially installed, if their full functionality requires always-on connectivity.

Re: HTML is the Web

#94

Post by dbtx »

manbearpiggy wrote: post #55
gargravarr wrote: post #38

The biggest takeaway is that HTML was originally designed to degrade gracefully. If your browser didn't support the intended graphical layout, it would still be able to extract the hierarchy and display a usable web page, even if you were using pure text (e.g. lynx). This kept the web accessible no matter what you were using. These days, none of that occurs. Just try switching off Javascript (I use NoScript heavily t…

Web pages should be designed to load without js.

Web pages that don't show anything without JS are broken. Ones that show only a message about enabling JS are worse. It seems JS;DR was already a thing long before I felt the need for it yesterday, when I simply missed that article about synths at ableton.com because it was broken. https://indieweb.org/js;dr

Re: HTML is the Web

#95

Post by TuringTest »

manbearpiggy wrote: post #55
gargravarr wrote: post #38

The biggest takeaway is that HTML was originally designed to degrade gracefully. If your browser didn't support the intended graphical layout, it would still be able to extract the hierarchy and display a usable web page, even if you were using pure text (e.g. lynx). This kept the web accessible no matter what you were using. These days, none of that occurs. Just try switching off Javascript (I use NoScript heavily t…

Web pages should be designed to load without js.

This. People have forgotten why the World Wide Web was needed to begin with, and nowadays think of it merely as an integrated delivery/communication platform.

Re: HTML is the Web

#96

Post by barryhoodlum »

tomxor wrote: post #83

> It’s about usability and accessibility. If you don’t think the semantic structure of your Web page or app is important then you’re essentially saying “Well, it works for me in my browser, ship it”. I'm interested, how close to reality is this view of front end devs? In my day job, it's difficult to get through a project without encountering WCAG 2.x or some other accessibility criteria. Which usually forces you to…

I wonder how much of this is about the author's ego. They can't or don't want to delve into the (admittedly labyrinthine) world of JS, so there must be a matching lack of ability on "the other side".

Re: HTML is the Web

#97

Post by fipar »

pjc50 wrote: post #69
flohofwoe wrote: post #9

Unpopular opinion... but I think this is a too limited view of the web. My contrary opinion is that the actually important feature of the web is the URL, and the important feature of the browser is that it provides a sandboxed platform for running untrusted code without a builtin "walled garden moral police". It would be nice if operating systems would be exactly that, but for some reason "commercial" OS vendors are…

I'm not quite sure how this relates to the original article, but: > the important feature of the browser is that it provides a sandboxed platform for running untrusted code without a builtin "walled garden moral police". > for some reason "commercial" OS vendors are not able or willing to provide a safe "native" sandbox completely uncoupled from curated app stores. The key word here is absolutely "unwilling". All the…

> In a world of fully general app sandboxes, you can switch out your hardware and OS at any time without disrupting your life or business. Therefore those are commoditized, and their price drops to the marginal cost of production - which for software is zero.

I think software's marginal cost of production is zero only if no updates/fixes are ever needed. I know it sounds like nitpicking but just think of all the vulnerabilities discovered, specially the closer software gets to the lower end of the stack. Even if an OS could suddenly stop adding features and still be viable in the market, the cost of patching it as holes are discovered is certainly not zero.

Re: HTML is the Web

#98

Post by thomascgalvin »

gargravarr wrote: post #38

The biggest takeaway is that HTML was originally designed to degrade gracefully. If your browser didn't support the intended graphical layout, it would still be able to extract the hierarchy and display a usable web page, even if you were using pure text (e.g. lynx). This kept the web accessible no matter what you were using. These days, none of that occurs. Just try switching off Javascript (I use NoScript heavily t…

> The biggest takeaway is that HTML was originally designed to degrade gracefully. ... These days, none of that occurs.

This can be directly attributed to the fact that the purpose of the average webpage is no longer to convey information, but to display ads.

I frequently see people say that if a site doesn't allow people with an ad blocker to read their content, they immediately bounce off the site, and that site loses a visitor. What I don't think people get is that this is what those sites want.

They don't care about pageviews or impressions. They care about ad views. Someone with an ad blocker uses their bandwidth, but doesn't increase revenue.

To an extent, the more important conveying information is, the more likely the page is to gracefully degrade. Of course, even that is mitigated by the fact that most people throwing up a web page are either hosted by a commercial platform (Medium, et al), or at the very least using a popular framework that is designed with commercial usage in mind.

Re: HTML is the Web

#99

Post by innocenat »

rimliu wrote: post #78
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my webpages had the valid xhtml badge! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Valid_XHTML_1.0.svg I still have a hard time un-learning ` `

Opening can of worms: did you serve them with any of the available XML MIME types? If not they worked simply because of the bug in the browsers (SHORTTAG means a different thing in HTML compared to XML) and all XHTML code served with HTML MIME type would be littered with ">" if browser treated it right ;)

I once toyed with the idea of serving XHTML page as application/xhtml+xml, but the fact the browser (back then, not sure about now) will just display XHTML error and doesn't render anything was a deal breaker for me.

Re: HTML is the Web

#100

Post by rocky1138 »

pistolpeteDK wrote: post #26
flohofwoe wrote: post #9

Unpopular opinion... but I think this is a too limited view of the web. My contrary opinion is that the actually important feature of the web is the URL, and the important feature of the browser is that it provides a sandboxed platform for running untrusted code without a builtin "walled garden moral police". It would be nice if operating systems would be exactly that, but for some reason "commercial" OS vendors are…

This. absolutely this! We didn't get the crossplatform UI framework we needed, we got the one we deserved. SwiftUI looks amazing - but again - apple only. React looked promising, but mainly for desktop, and it's not without its own issues. I think the W3C are a big part of why the web works so well cross-platform... even though the web was supposed to be "so much more". It's quite hard to imagine a similar kind of bo…

Have you ever written anything in Qt?
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