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Web Technologies Need an Owner

joehewitt.com

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Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#91

Post by polshaw »

mapgrep wrote: post #10

"Let's face facts: the Web will never be the dominant platform." Hewitt's post hinges on that statement, presented without supporting evidence. But actually the Web is already dominant among the platforms Hewitt mentions (Web, Windows, iOS, and Android). Relevant stats: Web - 1.7 billion users as of July, given that 880 million people go to the single busiest website publicly measured by Google, and this site has a "…

So who are these web users?

Lets assume iOS/android users also have a full computer. Right now i think this is reasonably accurate. So that means all the web users are also computer users. What OS do you think these people are using??

Do you honestly think that the number of people with exclusively OSX/linux outnumber the number of people with unconnected windows PCs? There are a lot of rural areas in the world with poor connectivity, and a lot of people with incomes that make the cost of connection prohibitive (while old computers are litterally dumped).

Having said all that, it matters little to the developer, because those unconnected windows users will be almost impossible to reach and won't have the money required to make development viable anyway.

TL;DR: More people on windows, but doesn't matter.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#92

Post by InclinedPlane »

bad_user wrote: post #79
nupark2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you'd say 'unquestionably,' short of a very loose definition of what makes an application. People spend 8 hours a day using desktop apps -- word, excel, outlook, GIS software, development tools, whatever. They read their email and twitter and consume content throughout the day on their mobile devices. At home they play video games, read books, comics, videos -- all using 'apps' on their TVs, mobile d…

I migrated from Thunderbird to GMail, and from Word/Excel to Google apps. The only desktop apps I'm still using, besides development tools and the actual browser, is a PDF reader + Skype + iTunes + the file manager + Gimp / Photoshop for editing my personal pictures (before uploading them to Flickr). On my Android phone I use native apps for online services, mostly because bandwidth is a problem and native apps have…

"It would actually be stupid implementing Photoshop in the browser."

You say that now... In truth I don't think there's a fundamental reason why that's such a bad idea, and I think it will happen in the coming years. JS compilation is getting better and better, eventually it'll reach the theoretical limits, which is to run more or less as fast as client-side C. Similarly, web standards are improving at an amazing rate, given the development base and momentum behind web applications (which are growing to be as big a business as any platform) eventually we're likely to end up with all the bits and pieces for supporting web apps (UI elements, frameworks, etc.) at a level matching that of desktop development.

At some point it's not only possible but indeed very likely that a photoshop web app will be built. But by then it probably won't seem like a crazy idea.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#93

Post by bad_user »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #92
bad_user wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I migrated from Thunderbird to GMail, and from Word/Excel to Google apps. The only desktop apps I'm still using, besides development tools and the actual browser, is a PDF reader + Skype + iTunes + the file manager + Gimp / Photoshop for editing my personal pictures (before uploading them to Flickr). On my Android phone I use native apps for online services, mostly because bandwidth is a problem and native apps have…

"It would actually be stupid implementing Photoshop in the browser." You say that now... In truth I don't think there's a fundamental reason why that's such a bad idea, and I think it will happen in the coming years. JS compilation is getting better and better, eventually it'll reach the theoretical limits, which is to run more or less as fast as client-side C. Similarly, web standards are improving at an amazing rat…

I'm not talking about image editing in general, I'm talking about Photoshop -- the industry standard for professionals, software that should be providing everything needed for professional-level retouches.

This is an important difference -- Moore's law is still applied -- but image resolutions are getting bigger and bigger, algorithms get more complicated and more fancy, people also want to be more and more productive.

What I'm saying is that image retouching for professionals needs every CPU cycle you can spare + screen real estate + really good integration with input devices.

I'm not seeing the browser (which stagnated for years), as a powerful enough medium for that, unless you can make Javascript as-fast-as-C without sacrificing too much RAM (since you need that too) and unless you provide lower-level access to hardware (OpenGL ES is a good start, but you need more).

Now surely, if Photoshop can't be built in the browser, that doesn't mean something less powerful will be less useful. But it won't be Photoshop.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#94

Post by MatthewPhillips »

joehewitt wrote: post #31
mapgrep wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the word "never" saves you from having to state when the web ceases to be the dominant platform. When do you think this will be? Something like "the web will never be the dominant platform, except for the past 10 years and the next 10 years" does lack a certain punch, but at least it would be specific :-) (And I appreciate your taking the time to write your blog post, and don't want to be a jerk, but the defini…

You're right, it's not the best sentence I've written in my life. Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to convey that the web is always going to have to fight for its survival, contrary to the common assumption that the web has some magical properties that ensure its long-term prominence.

The web has 1 magical property that no other platform can match (today): launching a website and installing a website are the same thing. This makes the web the most frictionless platform we've ever had, and explains it's widespread usage.

Whenever I see these "the web isn't as good as native" discussions I always think back to the late 90s when web-based email took off. How was the user experience on Yahoo mail in 1998? It was full page refreshes on 56k modems. The web doesn't have to maintain pace with native to be relevant, or even to win. It just has to keep being the easy, ubiquitous platform it is today.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#95

Post by InclinedPlane »

bad_user wrote: post #93
InclinedPlane wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It would actually be stupid implementing Photoshop in the browser." You say that now... In truth I don't think there's a fundamental reason why that's such a bad idea, and I think it will happen in the coming years. JS compilation is getting better and better, eventually it'll reach the theoretical limits, which is to run more or less as fast as client-side C. Similarly, web standards are improving at an amazing rat…

I'm not talking about image editing in general, I'm talking about Photoshop -- the industry standard for professionals, software that should be providing everything needed for professional-level retouches. This is an important difference -- Moore's law is still applied -- but image resolutions are getting bigger and bigger, algorithms get more complicated and more fancy, people also want to be more and more productiv…

I know what you mean, I mean the same thing. In 20 years time I fully expect that a Adobe Photoshop (or something 100% equivalent) will be a web app. Sure, it can't be done reasonably today, but for every single roadblock preventing it there will be many competent engineers capable of removing that one roadblock and many people (developers and users) providing a strong incentive to do so.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#96

Post by true_religion »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #95
bad_user wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about image editing in general, I'm talking about Photoshop -- the industry standard for professionals, software that should be providing everything needed for professional-level retouches. This is an important difference -- Moore's law is still applied -- but image resolutions are getting bigger and bigger, algorithms get more complicated and more fancy, people also want to be more and more productiv…

I know what you mean, I mean the same thing. In 20 years time I fully expect that a Adobe Photoshop (or something 100% equivalent) will be a web app. Sure, it can't be done reasonably today, but for every single roadblock preventing it there will be many competent engineers capable of removing that one roadblock and many people (developers and users) providing a strong incentive to do so.

Adobe is already trying to create a web version of Photoshop. Eventually, they'll get to full compatability but I don't think the web adds a unique advantage to Photoshop; likely they're just doing it to cut down on piracy figures.

One place where the web apps can excel is in replacing 3D modelers. Once we get to the point that the frontend can be done quickly in JS, then the entire backend (e.g. rendering) can be done on a server-side cloud.

Imagine being able to lease server time so that what was a 10hour job, is now a 1 hour job?

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