28 ms·

Who comes up with this stuff? I've used the MS GUI toolkits (WinForms, WPF, Web Forms if you consider that similar) and don't recall ever hearing about such obv

Who comes up with this stuff? I've used the MS GUI toolkits (WinForms, WPF, Web Forms if you consider that similar) and don't recall ever hearing about such obviously poorly designed stuff. They aren't perfect but they're fairly great. I've heard OK this about other GUI kits, too. What attracts such terrible stuff to the web?

randallsquared 11y ago
Design by committee.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  In many cases, the bad APIs were actually the opposite: "design by some random person at Netscape in the 90s".
  - staz 11y ago
    Read the history of the <blink> tag if you want a example : http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag
    - ssewell 11y ago
      So it literally was invented after a night of drinking at a bar. :-) I wonder about the origins of <marquee>.
      - krapp 11y ago
        Probably cocaine.
      - smacktoward 11y ago
        MARQUEE started out as a "feature" of very early versions of Internet Explorer, as a way for IE to differentiate itself from Netscape. (Don't hate Microsoft too much for this -- they were just following the lead of Netscape, who had their own proprietary tags. Heck, IMG started out as a Netscape-only tag.) There was a real danger for a few years in the mid-'90s that competition between browsers would manifest itself in a proliferation of proprietary tags that only worked with one browser or another. The old "Best viewed with..." buttons that sites used to festoon themselves with (examples: http://cjihrig.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/best_viewed_with_ie_or_netscape.jpg http://cjihrig.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/best_view...) were an artifact of this; they advertised that a site used one browser or another's particular set of proprietary tags, which was how you positioned yourself as "cutting edge" in, say, 1996. Things are better now, thankfully. (Not much better, but better.)
        kuschku 11y ago
        "WhatsApp Web requires Chrome or Opera" "Google Inboxbeta only works in Chrome" I’d say things are just as bad as before
        vcarl 11y ago
        True, but that's because whatever site can choose to rely on a cutting edge specced feature that the other browsers haven't implemented yet. At least it's not the 4 different companies trying to one-up each other.
        kuschku 11y ago
        But that’s what previous browser wars also were about: one browser implements experimental technology, all websites target it, etc. Chrome has become the new IE in the meaning that it supports weird special stuff, but sometimes not the official W3C definition, and webapps rarely work on multiple browsers.
        chr 11y ago
        The IMG tag showed up before there was a Netscape. You know that venture giant, the 'A' in A16Z? Long time ago he was marca without the initial 'p', maintained an emacs clone called Epoch, and also hacked away on a web browser called Mosaic: http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.html http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.ht...
        smacktoward 11y ago
        You're right, of course, I was mentally mixing up Mosaic with Netscape. I blame old age.
      - cbd1984 11y ago
        > I wonder about the origins of <marquee> Probably invented by some lunatic.
pcwalton 11y ago
> I've used the MS GUI toolkits (WinForms, WPF, Web Forms if you consider that similar) and don't recall ever hearing about such obviously poorly designed stuff. The raw Win32 API is worse than the Web APIs.
- riffraff 11y ago
  but the Win32 api also comes from what, 1993? Number input type is quite a bit more recent, we might expect something better.
  - lifthrasiir 11y ago
    Actually, 1985. Windows 1.0 had the exact set of APIs which later expanded to 32-bit and subsequently 64-bit.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Having worked with WinAPI for some time no, it's not worse than Web APIs. It seems to be more well thought-through, which probably says more about the current state of the web.
      - pcwalton 11y ago
        I couldn't disagree more, having worked with both sets of APIs. The Web APIs have benefited from a long period of multi-vendor standardization and consensus, something the Windows API has never had.
        douche 11y ago
        You know what they say about making chicken salad? Windows might not be top-brand chicken, but it's at least poultry.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

randallsquared 11y ago

Design by committee.

pcwalton 11y ago
In many cases, the bad APIs were actually the opposite: "design by some random person at Netscape in the 90s".
- staz 11y ago
  Read the history of the <blink> tag if you want a example : http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag
  - ssewell 11y ago
    So it literally was invented after a night of drinking at a bar. :-) I wonder about the origins of <marquee>.
    - krapp 11y ago
      Probably cocaine.
    - smacktoward 11y ago
      MARQUEE started out as a "feature" of very early versions of Internet Explorer, as a way for IE to differentiate itself from Netscape. (Don't hate Microsoft too much for this -- they were just following the lead of Netscape, who had their own proprietary tags. Heck, IMG started out as a Netscape-only tag.) There was a real danger for a few years in the mid-'90s that competition between browsers would manifest itself in a proliferation of proprietary tags that only worked with one browser or another. The old "Best viewed with..." buttons that sites used to festoon themselves with (examples: http://cjihrig.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/best_viewed_with_ie_or_netscape.jpg http://cjihrig.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/best_view...) were an artifact of this; they advertised that a site used one browser or another's particular set of proprietary tags, which was how you positioned yourself as "cutting edge" in, say, 1996. Things are better now, thankfully. (Not much better, but better.)
      - kuschku 11y ago
        "WhatsApp Web requires Chrome or Opera" "Google Inboxbeta only works in Chrome" I’d say things are just as bad as before
        vcarl 11y ago
        True, but that's because whatever site can choose to rely on a cutting edge specced feature that the other browsers haven't implemented yet. At least it's not the 4 different companies trying to one-up each other.
        kuschku 11y ago
        But that’s what previous browser wars also were about: one browser implements experimental technology, all websites target it, etc. Chrome has become the new IE in the meaning that it supports weird special stuff, but sometimes not the official W3C definition, and webapps rarely work on multiple browsers.
      - chr 11y ago
        The IMG tag showed up before there was a Netscape. You know that venture giant, the 'A' in A16Z? Long time ago he was marca without the initial 'p', maintained an emacs clone called Epoch, and also hacked away on a web browser called Mosaic: http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.html http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.ht...
        smacktoward 11y ago
        You're right, of course, I was mentally mixing up Mosaic with Netscape. I blame old age.
    - cbd1984 11y ago
      > I wonder about the origins of <marquee> Probably invented by some lunatic.

pcwalton 11y ago

> I've used the MS GUI toolkits (WinForms, WPF, Web Forms if you consider that similar) and don't recall ever hearing about such obviously poorly designed stuff. The raw Win32 API is worse than the Web APIs.

riffraff 11y ago
but the Win32 api also comes from what, 1993? Number input type is quite a bit more recent, we might expect something better.
- lifthrasiir 11y ago
  Actually, 1985. Windows 1.0 had the exact set of APIs which later expanded to 32-bit and subsequently 64-bit.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Having worked with WinAPI for some time no, it's not worse than Web APIs. It seems to be more well thought-through, which probably says more about the current state of the web.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      I couldn't disagree more, having worked with both sets of APIs. The Web APIs have benefited from a long period of multi-vendor standardization and consensus, something the Windows API has never had.
      - douche 11y ago
        You know what they say about making chicken salad? Windows might not be top-brand chicken, but it's at least poultry.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]