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Dude, comeon. The browser has evolved a lot as a platform, as has the hardware power of computers running them. Maybe we're re-writing computer history, but if

Dude, comeon. The browser has evolved a lot as a platform, as has the hardware power of computers running them. Maybe we're re-writing computer history, but if that's the case then it's because we have to migrate everything to javascript and the wiser old timers want nothing to do with it. * Do you really want to write CSS without a pre-processor? * Do you really want to control a webpage's state without JS models in the browser? * Do you really want to update html with individual jquery calls? * Do you really want to write websites _without_ using jquery? Keep in mind that jquery is only 10 years old. I'm glad that we have an open market to exchange people's ideas. Yes, a lot of it is crap, and even among the highly adopted packages there will be problems. But that's the beauty of the market-- people can vote with their feet. This article sums up how I feel: http://mrmrs.io/writing/2015/07/27/too-many-tools/ http://mrmrs.io/writing/2015/07/27/too-many-tools/ > "Four–fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake." - Rudyard Kipling in 1890

rer 10y ago
> we have to migrate everything to javascript Why? What I really want is the whole browser to go away.
- civilian 10y ago
  Okay. I guess you're welcome to do that? We browser coders will just continue to go to market faster. It's pretty cool that, if you put your work in, you can make a GUI on the browser that is accessible to all desktops and phones. That's 2 billion users. The obvious question is: what would you replace it with? Do you want to replace it all with native apps? Or do you think that this whole internet thing is overrated?
  - adrianN 10y ago
    He probably agrees with this http://web.archive.org/web/20120509105723/http://teddziuba.com/2008/09/a-web-os-are-you-dense.html http://web.archive.org/web/20120509105723/http://teddziuba.c...
  - snarfy 10y ago
    What's wrong with native apps? They use less memory, battery, and processor than an interpreted stack. They can be more responsive than the hardwired 16ms latency built into the browser. If you need network it's not hard to open a socket. The browser itself is a native app opening sockets. In pretty much every respect, native apps are better for the user than web apps. The person that benefits the most from web apps is the developer.
    - jjnoakes 10y ago
      I'm not taking a side here, but I would like to advocate for a fair comparison, since you have skipped all of the trade-offs in the other direction. For example, web apps are often easier to discover, easier to update, easier to manage (since you only have one version in the wild you have to handle), easier to launch (especially for first-time users), easier to use from different platforms, more secure (debatable, but since the browser has huge companies working to keep it secure, and your native app that's just opening sockets doesn't, it probably is true), ... There's pros and cons to both sides. Just framing the situation as "my side has these benefits, therefore there is no reason to consider your side" is not an honest discussion.
      - snarfy 10y ago
        Thanks for this. I was meaning to respond to my own comment but you made the points for me. It definitely goes both ways.
      - stephenr 10y ago
        > easier to discover, How can that possibly be true? A web app can appear in a search engine. A native app's website can appear in a search engine and in a platform App Store. > easier to update, because "clear your cache and reload the page" has been said by no frustrated support/technical staff, ever? > easier to manage (since you only have one version in the wild you have to handle), Except when there are cache issues. Or when you have multiple servers and need to upgrade them without downtime. Not to mention all the stuff required to host your app needs to handle enough scale to load not just any potential server side data but also the entire ui, possibly every time someone loads it (opposite of the cache problem above). Must be easier though, I've never heard of any web apps being unavailable because the servers were overloaded. > easier to launch (especially for first-time users), How is typing a or clicking a link easier than tapping/clicking an icon? > easier to use from different platforms, If your browser on your platform is supported. And you have the right version. > more secure (debatable, but since the browser has huge companies working to keep it secure, and your native app that's just opening sockets doesn't, it probably is true) This is a joke, right? Did you suddenly forget all the huge leaks of massive amounts of information from hacked web apps? Pretty much no web apps use local storage exclusively. So your attack surface is not "the browser", it's the browser, the network stack, the network itself (see: ddos on Dyn, Comodo/WoSign bullshittery to name a couple from the last month alone), your server host(s), your server os/stack, your server side app logic, your server side db/storage stack.. Do I need to go on?
- jbergens 10y ago
  You do remember that Windows is the dominant os for end users? Almost all ui's would have to be created for Windows, and possibly for the other operating systems also. That's probably a lot of extra work.
  - Scarblac 10y ago
    Isn't Android more or less Windows' equal now, in terms of users?
- krisdol 10y ago
  If developers were better about releasing quality, multi-platform software using their 1970s languages of choice, maybe we wouldn't have all moved to the browser.
onli 10y ago
> Do you really want to write CSS without a pre-processor? Not him, but yes, I absolutely do. Pre-processors mainly have the effect of forcing you to have a build tool workflow, and the nice thing about web design is that you don't need stuff like that.
- civilian 10y ago
  They were rhetorical questions anyway :) But you're right, I get away without preprocessors when I'm doing very small projects. And a year ago my team had a 20-second SASS compilation step, that was painful. I guess I couldn't do without it because of things like: variables, nested rules, vendor prefixes, and mixins. I use a lot of mixins in scss and I feel like my code becomes more modular because of it.
  - onli 10y ago
    > I use a lot of mixins in scss and I feel like my code becomes more modular because of it. Well, it does, if you don't emulate the same effect with other means. But imho, needing modularity in CSS means (for most projects that are not gigantesque) that the CSS is too big anyway. It depends on what one does, specific web apps might need it. But normal web pages never.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  I have found a nice compromise, in Angular apps at least, is to make a directive (tag library) that generates my "<style>" block. It's reasonably "thin", but I can use variables to hold repeated style elements that get mixed in various selectors.
coldtea 10y ago
>Dude, comeon. The browser has evolved a lot as a platform, as has the hardware power of computers running them. Yes. It has evolved to counter-balance those advances in hardware power, in order to provide a sub-par 2000 native desktop application experience in a 2016 browser sandbox. >Maybe we're re-writing computer history Maybe? >but if that's the case then it's because we have to migrate everything to javascript and the wiser old timers want nothing to do with it. Err, why do we "have to"? And what's with the "old timers" / hot young JS developers dichotomy?
- civilian 10y ago
  We have to rewrite everything in JS because JS is the language that runs on browsers. :) If you were asking a higher-level why (why do we have to use the browser), look rer's sibling comment. I wrote the phrase "wise old timers" with respect-- y'all truly have things to teach us. But it often feels that y'all just want to complain about how we're doing things wrong, rather than actually helping. I suspect that "old timers" is correct maybe 80% of the time, since the complainers are probably people who have years of non-JS experience and are disappointed that the new bootcampers haven't gone through their coming-of-age programming rituals. But I have a friend who is a member of the C++ master-race, so trust me, I know that gripes about browsers & JS can come from many kinds of people.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >We have to rewrite everything in JS because JS is the language that runs on browsers. Not much of an argument. We already have 24/7 internet connected laptops, tablets and smartphones, which is were those browsers run in the first place anyway. Perhaps we could, and I'm going on a limp here, just cut the middleman and run on the metal? If the problem is discoverability/installation/security etc we could focus on app stores and sandboxes (which modern OSes also have both), instead of rewriting everything on the web. >* But it often feels that y'all just want to complain about how we're doing things wrong, rather than actually helping.* Well, you first stop someone from drowning and then you show them how to swim...
    - 10y ago
revelation 10y ago
I don't want to do any of these things. They are the result of bad decisions in years past. Now more and more JS abstractions are heaped upon the pile and we call it the best thing since sliced bread. No.
minitech 10y ago
> Do you really want to write CSS without a pre-processor? Yes. The only things that are worth having one for are variables and that’s not enough to add the development overhead. > Do you really want to control a webpage's state without JS models in the browser? I prefer to avoid controlling a webpage’s state in the browser as much as possible. > Do you really want to update html with individual jquery calls? No, I want to update the DOM… > Do you really want to write websites _without_ using jquery? Keep in mind that jquery is only 10 years old. … without jQuery, yes, because it’s designed horribly. These practices also happen to result in a website that is actually possible to develop and view on my computer with reasonable performance, because I’m one of those users nobody cares about who can’t afford the latest MacBook.

rer 10y ago

> we have to migrate everything to javascript Why? What I really want is the whole browser to go away.

civilian 10y ago
Okay. I guess you're welcome to do that? We browser coders will just continue to go to market faster. It's pretty cool that, if you put your work in, you can make a GUI on the browser that is accessible to all desktops and phones. That's 2 billion users. The obvious question is: what would you replace it with? Do you want to replace it all with native apps? Or do you think that this whole internet thing is overrated?
- adrianN 10y ago
  He probably agrees with this http://web.archive.org/web/20120509105723/http://teddziuba.com/2008/09/a-web-os-are-you-dense.html http://web.archive.org/web/20120509105723/http://teddziuba.c...
- snarfy 10y ago
  What's wrong with native apps? They use less memory, battery, and processor than an interpreted stack. They can be more responsive than the hardwired 16ms latency built into the browser. If you need network it's not hard to open a socket. The browser itself is a native app opening sockets. In pretty much every respect, native apps are better for the user than web apps. The person that benefits the most from web apps is the developer.
  - jjnoakes 10y ago
    I'm not taking a side here, but I would like to advocate for a fair comparison, since you have skipped all of the trade-offs in the other direction. For example, web apps are often easier to discover, easier to update, easier to manage (since you only have one version in the wild you have to handle), easier to launch (especially for first-time users), easier to use from different platforms, more secure (debatable, but since the browser has huge companies working to keep it secure, and your native app that's just opening sockets doesn't, it probably is true), ... There's pros and cons to both sides. Just framing the situation as "my side has these benefits, therefore there is no reason to consider your side" is not an honest discussion.
    - snarfy 10y ago
      Thanks for this. I was meaning to respond to my own comment but you made the points for me. It definitely goes both ways.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      > easier to discover, How can that possibly be true? A web app can appear in a search engine. A native app's website can appear in a search engine and in a platform App Store. > easier to update, because "clear your cache and reload the page" has been said by no frustrated support/technical staff, ever? > easier to manage (since you only have one version in the wild you have to handle), Except when there are cache issues. Or when you have multiple servers and need to upgrade them without downtime. Not to mention all the stuff required to host your app needs to handle enough scale to load not just any potential server side data but also the entire ui, possibly every time someone loads it (opposite of the cache problem above). Must be easier though, I've never heard of any web apps being unavailable because the servers were overloaded. > easier to launch (especially for first-time users), How is typing a or clicking a link easier than tapping/clicking an icon? > easier to use from different platforms, If your browser on your platform is supported. And you have the right version. > more secure (debatable, but since the browser has huge companies working to keep it secure, and your native app that's just opening sockets doesn't, it probably is true) This is a joke, right? Did you suddenly forget all the huge leaks of massive amounts of information from hacked web apps? Pretty much no web apps use local storage exclusively. So your attack surface is not "the browser", it's the browser, the network stack, the network itself (see: ddos on Dyn, Comodo/WoSign bullshittery to name a couple from the last month alone), your server host(s), your server os/stack, your server side app logic, your server side db/storage stack.. Do I need to go on?
jbergens 10y ago
You do remember that Windows is the dominant os for end users? Almost all ui's would have to be created for Windows, and possibly for the other operating systems also. That's probably a lot of extra work.
- Scarblac 10y ago
  Isn't Android more or less Windows' equal now, in terms of users?
krisdol 10y ago
If developers were better about releasing quality, multi-platform software using their 1970s languages of choice, maybe we wouldn't have all moved to the browser.

onli 10y ago

> Do you really want to write CSS without a pre-processor? Not him, but yes, I absolutely do. Pre-processors mainly have the effect of forcing you to have a build tool workflow, and the nice thing about web design is that you don't need stuff like that.

civilian 10y ago
They were rhetorical questions anyway :) But you're right, I get away without preprocessors when I'm doing very small projects. And a year ago my team had a 20-second SASS compilation step, that was painful. I guess I couldn't do without it because of things like: variables, nested rules, vendor prefixes, and mixins. I use a lot of mixins in scss and I feel like my code becomes more modular because of it.
- onli 10y ago
  > I use a lot of mixins in scss and I feel like my code becomes more modular because of it. Well, it does, if you don't emulate the same effect with other means. But imho, needing modularity in CSS means (for most projects that are not gigantesque) that the CSS is too big anyway. It depends on what one does, specific web apps might need it. But normal web pages never.
Roboprog 10y ago
I have found a nice compromise, in Angular apps at least, is to make a directive (tag library) that generates my "<style>" block. It's reasonably "thin", but I can use variables to hold repeated style elements that get mixed in various selectors.

coldtea 10y ago

>Dude, comeon. The browser has evolved a lot as a platform, as has the hardware power of computers running them. Yes. It has evolved to counter-balance those advances in hardware power, in order to provide a sub-par 2000 native desktop application experience in a 2016 browser sandbox. >Maybe we're re-writing computer history Maybe? >but if that's the case then it's because we have to migrate everything to javascript and the wiser old timers want nothing to do with it. Err, why do we "have to"? And what's with the "old timers" / hot young JS developers dichotomy?

civilian 10y ago
We have to rewrite everything in JS because JS is the language that runs on browsers. :) If you were asking a higher-level why (why do we have to use the browser), look rer's sibling comment. I wrote the phrase "wise old timers" with respect-- y'all truly have things to teach us. But it often feels that y'all just want to complain about how we're doing things wrong, rather than actually helping. I suspect that "old timers" is correct maybe 80% of the time, since the complainers are probably people who have years of non-JS experience and are disappointed that the new bootcampers haven't gone through their coming-of-age programming rituals. But I have a friend who is a member of the C++ master-race, so trust me, I know that gripes about browsers & JS can come from many kinds of people.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >We have to rewrite everything in JS because JS is the language that runs on browsers. Not much of an argument. We already have 24/7 internet connected laptops, tablets and smartphones, which is were those browsers run in the first place anyway. Perhaps we could, and I'm going on a limp here, just cut the middleman and run on the metal? If the problem is discoverability/installation/security etc we could focus on app stores and sandboxes (which modern OSes also have both), instead of rewriting everything on the web. >* But it often feels that y'all just want to complain about how we're doing things wrong, rather than actually helping.* Well, you first stop someone from drowning and then you show them how to swim...
  - 10y ago

revelation 10y ago

I don't want to do any of these things. They are the result of bad decisions in years past. Now more and more JS abstractions are heaped upon the pile and we call it the best thing since sliced bread. No.

minitech 10y ago

> Do you really want to write CSS without a pre-processor? Yes. The only things that are worth having one for are variables and that’s not enough to add the development overhead. > Do you really want to control a webpage's state without JS models in the browser? I prefer to avoid controlling a webpage’s state in the browser as much as possible. > Do you really want to update html with individual jquery calls? No, I want to update the DOM… > Do you really want to write websites _without_ using jquery? Keep in mind that jquery is only 10 years old. … without jQuery, yes, because it’s designed horribly. These practices also happen to result in a website that is actually possible to develop and view on my computer with reasonable performance, because I’m one of those users nobody cares about who can’t afford the latest MacBook.