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A stack for building web applications in the browser. HTML and CSS are pretty good for documents, but terrible for in-browser GUI apps that we're all building,

A stack for building web applications in the browser. HTML and CSS are pretty good for documents, but terrible for in-browser GUI apps that we're all building, its just piles of hacks upon hacks. I want someone, probably Google since they own both a major browser and some of the most popular web applications, to re-invent the entire stack. Steal ideas from GUI-focused languages and toolkits, like QML, Swift, AppKit, etc. Lets pull in a superior scripting language like Lua and widget-layout framework like Qt, and support it natively and securely in the browser, building on everything we've learned in the last 20 years of creating web applications.

hgf888 10y ago
How about Dart + Polymer?
- psadauskas 10y ago
  HTML+CSS+JS being the "assembly language of the web" is a terrible build target, I want a better foundation to build upon.
  - kybernetikos 10y ago
    I think you're massively overstating how bad HTML+CSS+JS are, but how do you feel about WebAsm + WebGL as the target?
    - Senji 10y ago
      I'd like to keep the DOM around and not have the web turn into an incomprehensible mess of canvas pixels.
      - kybernetikos 10y ago
        The DOM is perfectly appropriate for modeling documents, and we should indeed keep it around and make use of it where appropriate, but documents aren't all we want to do with the web platform.
rimantas 10y ago
What if in the last 20 years we've learned that browser is not the proper place for applications?
- psadauskas 10y ago
  I disagree with that very strongly. I don't want to have to install 100+ desktop apps (and hope they're available for my OS, and up-to-date) to be able to use every service I interact with. If GMail, GCalendar, HN, GitHub, CircleCI, Google Docs, Slack, and every other web application I use every day were not in a browser, the world would be a much worse place. But all of those applications are built upon that pile of hacks, and much harder to write an maintain than they should be.
- csallen 10y ago
  I think we've learned the exact opposite of that in the past 20 years.
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  Why would you say that? The browser has become the most successful app platform ever built.
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    I would have said Windows was the most successful app platform ever built.
    - kkarakk 10y ago
      keyword is was. no one is excited about making innovative windows apps, it's a way to get your thing out to everyone but with all the traditional blocks(users have to find and install, different configurations might mess up your app etc)
jkroso 10y ago
An OS based on IPFS would give you the best of both worlds. AFAIK browsers are popular because they load apps quickly and without an install step. While native apps let you choose your stack. An OS based on IPFS would load big apps quickly thanks to caching, the install step would go away because there is no difference between remote files and local ones and its still an OS so the app can be written in C or any other language built on top of it.
- carussell 10y ago
  Zero-install is half of the reason why browsers are popular. The other half is that the Web puts the users in far more control over the content in their viewport than anything else that has been widely deployed except for probably Microsoft Excel. If your first thought is that desire for control is a niche thing, an instance of power users projecting their biases onto the rest of the world and not a concern for some mythical "everyman", you are wrong. Because those normal folk are exactly why Excel even gets a mention.
  - lj3 10y ago
    That doesn't explain the popularity of mobile apps among the "everyman". They're not very customizable, but they're considerably more popular than either the regular or mobile web. > If your first thought is that desire for control is a niche thing, an instance of power users projecting their biases onto the rest of the world and not a concern for some mythical "everyman", you are wrong. Evidence? Sales numbers tend to prove the opposite. It's the whole reason the apple ecosystem makes as much money as it does: it just works and it looks good doing it. Most people don't enjoy having to spend any time on getting anything to work or customizing anything to their liking. They just want it to do what it's supposed to do then go back to whatever it is they find more important. Now, could a zero-install network of apps kill the browser? I'm not so sure. Developing native apps is a royal pain in the ass right now. But, if something like QML were to get a lot better and easier to use, it could take a dent out of the single page application market.
    - jkroso 10y ago
pfranz 10y ago
That's what I understood Microsoft Gazelle[1] to be. I remember a blurb about it in 2009, I was very excited about the idea, but since then I haven't seen or heard anything. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-multi-principal-os-construction-of-the-gazelle-web-browser/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-mul...
- NicoJuicy 10y ago
  WPF?
mstijak 10y ago
Cx offers a complete set of desktop-like widgets. https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=JHuzRB1C https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=JHuzRB1C https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=vwyHzOO1 https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=vwyHzOO1 https://cx.codaxy.com/docs/ https://cx.codaxy.com/docs/
wslh 10y ago
Completely agree, I can't believe that Visual Basic was more advanced UI design-wise than current tools.
meredydd 10y ago
Man, I'm late posting this, but this is exactly what we're building with Anvil - https://anvil.works https://anvil.works > Superior scripting language We use Python - on the client and on the server (with rich RPC between the two). > Steal ideas from GUI-focused languages and toolkits The biggest such idea is that most layouts should be done visually - Visual Basic had this right, and we've been moving backwards ever since. (The web has three, usually four intermediate representations you have to think through to edit your appearance: Template (->substitution->) HTML (->parsing->) DOM (->CSS render->) visual layout)

hgf888 10y ago

How about Dart + Polymer?

psadauskas 10y ago
HTML+CSS+JS being the "assembly language of the web" is a terrible build target, I want a better foundation to build upon.
- kybernetikos 10y ago
  I think you're massively overstating how bad HTML+CSS+JS are, but how do you feel about WebAsm + WebGL as the target?
  - Senji 10y ago
    I'd like to keep the DOM around and not have the web turn into an incomprehensible mess of canvas pixels.
    - kybernetikos 10y ago
      The DOM is perfectly appropriate for modeling documents, and we should indeed keep it around and make use of it where appropriate, but documents aren't all we want to do with the web platform.

rimantas 10y ago

What if in the last 20 years we've learned that browser is not the proper place for applications?

psadauskas 10y ago
I disagree with that very strongly. I don't want to have to install 100+ desktop apps (and hope they're available for my OS, and up-to-date) to be able to use every service I interact with. If GMail, GCalendar, HN, GitHub, CircleCI, Google Docs, Slack, and every other web application I use every day were not in a browser, the world would be a much worse place. But all of those applications are built upon that pile of hacks, and much harder to write an maintain than they should be.
csallen 10y ago
I think we've learned the exact opposite of that in the past 20 years.
dwaltrip 10y ago
Why would you say that? The browser has become the most successful app platform ever built.
- EliRivers 10y ago
  I would have said Windows was the most successful app platform ever built.
  - kkarakk 10y ago
    keyword is was. no one is excited about making innovative windows apps, it's a way to get your thing out to everyone but with all the traditional blocks(users have to find and install, different configurations might mess up your app etc)

jkroso 10y ago

An OS based on IPFS would give you the best of both worlds. AFAIK browsers are popular because they load apps quickly and without an install step. While native apps let you choose your stack. An OS based on IPFS would load big apps quickly thanks to caching, the install step would go away because there is no difference between remote files and local ones and its still an OS so the app can be written in C or any other language built on top of it.

carussell 10y ago
Zero-install is half of the reason why browsers are popular. The other half is that the Web puts the users in far more control over the content in their viewport than anything else that has been widely deployed except for probably Microsoft Excel. If your first thought is that desire for control is a niche thing, an instance of power users projecting their biases onto the rest of the world and not a concern for some mythical "everyman", you are wrong. Because those normal folk are exactly why Excel even gets a mention.
- lj3 10y ago
  That doesn't explain the popularity of mobile apps among the "everyman". They're not very customizable, but they're considerably more popular than either the regular or mobile web. > If your first thought is that desire for control is a niche thing, an instance of power users projecting their biases onto the rest of the world and not a concern for some mythical "everyman", you are wrong. Evidence? Sales numbers tend to prove the opposite. It's the whole reason the apple ecosystem makes as much money as it does: it just works and it looks good doing it. Most people don't enjoy having to spend any time on getting anything to work or customizing anything to their liking. They just want it to do what it's supposed to do then go back to whatever it is they find more important. Now, could a zero-install network of apps kill the browser? I'm not so sure. Developing native apps is a royal pain in the ass right now. But, if something like QML were to get a lot better and easier to use, it could take a dent out of the single page application market.
  - jkroso 10y ago

pfranz 10y ago

That's what I understood Microsoft Gazelle[1] to be. I remember a blurb about it in 2009, I was very excited about the idea, but since then I haven't seen or heard anything. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-multi-principal-os-construction-of-the-gazelle-web-browser/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-mul...

NicoJuicy 10y ago
WPF?

mstijak 10y ago

Cx offers a complete set of desktop-like widgets. https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=JHuzRB1C https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=JHuzRB1C https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=vwyHzOO1 https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=vwyHzOO1 https://cx.codaxy.com/docs/ https://cx.codaxy.com/docs/

wslh 10y ago

Completely agree, I can't believe that Visual Basic was more advanced UI design-wise than current tools.

meredydd 10y ago

Man, I'm late posting this, but this is exactly what we're building with Anvil - https://anvil.works https://anvil.works > Superior scripting language We use Python - on the client and on the server (with rich RPC between the two). > Steal ideas from GUI-focused languages and toolkits The biggest such idea is that most layouts should be done visually - Visual Basic had this right, and we've been moving backwards ever since. (The web has three, usually four intermediate representations you have to think through to edit your appearance: Template (->substitution->) HTML (->parsing->) DOM (->CSS render->) visual layout)