4 ms·
It's certainly an interesting conundrum, and I agree that eventually without ecosystem support Alice and Bob might find things a little tough. However, it's im
by Andrex 10y ago
It's certainly an interesting conundrum, and I agree that eventually without ecosystem support Alice and Bob might find things a little tough.
However, it's important to realize that the way the web is moving is to not only benefit the working professionals being paid to write it, but also the consumers who experience it.
Why do we have minifiers and transpilers and modules and font icons? Why do we aim for one script tag instead of 50?
Because for a consumer, the web sucked (and still sucks to an extent, but less so with AMP and offline APIs.) For "prosumers" like Alice and Bob, it was a buffet, but for people browing their web pages it sucked. It was slow and unresponsive and that's even before the rise of the mobile web.
And whether the ecosystem leaves them behind or not, Alice and Bob can always create a new slideshow.js file on any given platform they want.
The web is moving towards being better for professionals and consumers, and I agree that those in the middle might lose out a little, but they are very small peanuts. I'd rather optimize for the next billion users in Africa, India and beyond, most of whom are on sub-2G speeds, than for the script kiddies making an easy living pilfering jQuery widgets without learning the platform.
- douche 10y agoI miss the days of the plain-old html web. It might have been ugly, and there might have been marquees and blink tags, and under construction signs, and webrings and webmasters, but it loaded over my 56k modem, nobody was screwing with my back button, or messing up scrolling, or popping modals in my face, or pestering me with anti-anti-anti-ad-blocking nag modals and interstitials.
- barryhoodlum 10y agoI was just reading a blog post where a guy had written about Steve Reich and Brian Eno's experiments and his attempts at replicating them. It was posted on HN a few days ago: http://teropa.info/blog/2016/07/28/javascript-systems-music.html http://teropa.info/blog/2016/07/28/javascript-systems-music.... There are embedded YouTube videos, MP3s, and code samples to illustrate what he's writing about. He's implemented their ideas using the Web Audio API and you can run the code from within the page and listen to the music being generated in real-time. It's a real testament to how great the web can be. I think being able to do things like that is worth all the annoying parts of the modern web, in the end. For the developer and the end user. I wouldn't want to go back to the old way. I think it's easy to focus on the annoying parts and take the good parts for granted.
- flukus 10y ago> It's a real testament to how great the web can be Doing something in a browser that we could do 30 years ago on a desktop isn't that great a testament.
- barryhoodlum 10y agoBut you're clicking on a link, not downloading and installing an application.
- flukus 10y agoYou are downloading an application, arguably installing one temporarily too. Is this that much more efficient than "apt-get install foo"?
- ecnahc515 10y agoYes, because it means all my users can install the same application and I only have to write it once for all platforms. Not every platform/OS even has a (good) package manager. So I think this alone is what makes the web great.
- chiefalchemist 10y agoTrue. But users don't care. Not only that, such ease had only created more noise and less expertise. Piss all you want about MS and Apple back in the day but they understood quality control. Today? Ha. We just have lower expectations. We accept shite because we have no other choice. Furthermore, free isn't free when my privacy is sold and/or my eye balls are subjected to even more ads. This is progress? No fucking way.
- sangnoir 10y ago> Piss all you want about MS and Apple back in the day but they understood quality control I don't know what you are on about as there weren't any app stores controlled by Apple or MS. Anyone was able to release crap software on floppy disks or BBS, and they did.
- joshcrews 10y agothe advance of minifies and transpilers and modules doesnt seem to increase page performance. one of the effect of it being so efficient to minify and transpile is that large imports and frameworks are easier to use, and that boosts the total JS lines of code, making the JS parsing take a long time, and the page performance get "janky"
- Andrex 10y agoGood point. And you could argue HTTP2/SPDY and GZIP makes concatenating and minifying files even less of an issue. I'm not sure it's completely comparable though, file sizes would have increased even without minification.
- chiefalchemist 10y agoMediocrity expands to fill the space and time available. Mediocre solutions are fixed with an endless array of tools. Learning tools takes time. And that's just to break even. And around we go again. Can we really say the average web experience is better than the average of 10 or just 5 years ago? (Hint: Nope.) Find someone who is less frustrated with technology and you'll find someone who has given up on technology.