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Well, who would have guessed. Surprise surprise. The web is such a shit technology.

by ysleepy 10y ago

oblio 10y ago
And how would Silverlight or Java applets or Flash or any other client side technology be better in this regard? You have to expose capabilities and those capabilities can be used to create an unique fingerprint based on your device. How would you design the stack so that this kind of thing is impossible? Feel free to use your favorite tech stack as a base.
- justJanne 10y ago
  Simple: Seperate documents, interactivity, and programs. If I browse the web, I usually want documents. Sometimes I also want interactivity, like in comment forms, which could be a seperated widget which could only interact in limited ways, and only with the page and the server it connects to. And then there would be programs, which could access even local files – but would have an installation process like browser extensions. Giving documents access that normally just programs do is stupid, as we have seen in Word Macro-based malware, PDF-based malware, Browser-based malware (the pdf.js exploit, for example), and so on.
- ysleepy 10y ago
  How about not developing applications in the browser? Its about linked documents. Not angular-17 MVVM async session persistence in indexdb with websql and asm.js rendering webgl for a spinning teapot.
  - andybak 10y ago
    OK. So you get your 'document only' internet. Where do we put all the other stuff? I have a bunch of 'non-document' websites that are essential to me now. What happens under your new regime? Someone reimplements them all as native apps? The point I'm making is just because your internet is document-only please don't assume mine or other people's are.
    - ysleepy 10y ago
      Because it is so, it must be so. Every web app is written in perl/php, therefore we will keep using perl/php. - What will you do, rewrite the apps? </.. internet != web. This cludge of in-browser tech everyone is pursuing already comes with so much suffering for the developer. But the enthusiasm to embrace garbage like religion is just unbelievable. (yeah js everything, spotify lol) I think the current webapp tech stack is not doing our generation justice. Yes google has very strong interests in maintaining status quo since it dominates it and so do many other giants. But good, user friendly and maintainable software looks different. Why not break the completely misused model of documents for apps ? there is no document semantics in 1000x <div> elements riddled with js callbacks. But dont let my cynicism annoy you, its the resignation talking. Imagine what cool tech we would have if something was started in the 90s (no, not java applets) and was all grown up now. But every big company is now a walled garden provider. Just think about UI toolkits, would spotify be in Chromeframe otherwise?.
ethanbond 10y ago
"The web" is such a shit technology? No one denies that the web as we know it is kind of a clusterfuck of things duct taped together, but to say it's "a shit technology" is maybe giving too little credit.

Well, who would have guessed. Surprise surprise. The web is such a shit technology.

by ysleepy 10y ago

Well, who would have guessed. Surprise surprise. The web is such a shit technology.

oblio 10y ago

And how would Silverlight or Java applets or Flash or any other client side technology be better in this regard? You have to expose capabilities and those capabilities can be used to create an unique fingerprint based on your device. How would you design the stack so that this kind of thing is impossible? Feel free to use your favorite tech stack as a base.

justJanne 10y ago
Simple: Seperate documents, interactivity, and programs. If I browse the web, I usually want documents. Sometimes I also want interactivity, like in comment forms, which could be a seperated widget which could only interact in limited ways, and only with the page and the server it connects to. And then there would be programs, which could access even local files – but would have an installation process like browser extensions. Giving documents access that normally just programs do is stupid, as we have seen in Word Macro-based malware, PDF-based malware, Browser-based malware (the pdf.js exploit, for example), and so on.
ysleepy 10y ago
How about not developing applications in the browser? Its about linked documents. Not angular-17 MVVM async session persistence in indexdb with websql and asm.js rendering webgl for a spinning teapot.
- andybak 10y ago
  OK. So you get your 'document only' internet. Where do we put all the other stuff? I have a bunch of 'non-document' websites that are essential to me now. What happens under your new regime? Someone reimplements them all as native apps? The point I'm making is just because your internet is document-only please don't assume mine or other people's are.
  - ysleepy 10y ago
    Because it is so, it must be so. Every web app is written in perl/php, therefore we will keep using perl/php. - What will you do, rewrite the apps? </.. internet != web. This cludge of in-browser tech everyone is pursuing already comes with so much suffering for the developer. But the enthusiasm to embrace garbage like religion is just unbelievable. (yeah js everything, spotify lol) I think the current webapp tech stack is not doing our generation justice. Yes google has very strong interests in maintaining status quo since it dominates it and so do many other giants. But good, user friendly and maintainable software looks different. Why not break the completely misused model of documents for apps ? there is no document semantics in 1000x <div> elements riddled with js callbacks. But dont let my cynicism annoy you, its the resignation talking. Imagine what cool tech we would have if something was started in the 90s (no, not java applets) and was all grown up now. But every big company is now a walled garden provider. Just think about UI toolkits, would spotify be in Chromeframe otherwise?.

ethanbond 10y ago

"The web" is such a shit technology? No one denies that the web as we know it is kind of a clusterfuck of things duct taped together, but to say it's "a shit technology" is maybe giving too little credit.