7 ms·
If we all had something like Display Postscript, this layout thingamajig would be delegated to libraries, and we wouldn't have to ask the browser deities to bes
by mhd 10y ago
If we all had something like Display Postscript, this layout thingamajig would be delegated to libraries, and we wouldn't have to ask the browser deities to bestow new gifts upon us. Good adaptive layout would be closer to a new version of jquery and less Windows XP Service Pack 51.0.2b.
(We also would have more sites that looked liked late 90s Flash, but then again, we're moving that direction anyway, just with more effort and convoluted design)
- ebalit 10y agoWhat would be the advantage over SVG ?
- mhd 10y agoPostScript is a programming language.
- milesrout 10y agoI don't see how that's a benefit.
- xaduha 10y agoExactly. Also happens when people talk about would-be DSL that they made on top of existing language and mention that you can always fallback to using it. But that's the whole point of the domain-specific language that it is not a generic purpose one! Sometimes less is more and constraints are good, there are things that you shouldn't shoehorn.
- ebalit 10y agoOver SVG with Javascript if you prefer.
- e12e 10y agoIndeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13529345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13529345 ("Hacking Printers Advisory 1/6: PostScript printers vulnerable to print job capture ").
- lomnakkus 10y agoWhile that would probably work fine for display and layout, but it doesn't work so well with the semantic document model that the web is built on. For example accessibility would suffer greatly unless every "jquery" (using your analogy) out there were to implement its own accessibility. (That's not to say things are absolutely peachy wrt. accessibility these days, but they'd get a lot worse if everybody had to implement their own.)
- amiga-workbench 10y agoI don't know if developers even care about semantic markup anymore, just have your 5 meg of JavaScript squirt out a bundle of divs and to hell with accessibility.
- swerner 10y agoJust render a png file, server side. The only way to ensure pixel perfect layout, and it's even going to use less bandwidth than most JS frameworks these days.
- paulddraper 10y agoWrap that sucker in some HTML with <map> tags and you're golden.
- xaduha 10y agoCan't name any site that uses <map> still other than http://www.teamfortress.com http://www.teamfortress.com
- xaduha 10y ago> Just render a png file, server side. Know of any examples of that in practice or is this just a joke?
- swerner 10y ago
- GeneralMaximus 10y agoIf we're lucky, we might get exactly that with Houdini. It's a proposed spec that -- if implemented -- will allow programmatic control of the browser's styling and layout process. Check it: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/houdini-maybe-the-most-exciting-development-in-css-youve-never-heard-of/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/houdini-maybe-the-m... Here's the GitHub repo: https://github.com/w3c/css-houdini-drafts https://github.com/w3c/css-houdini-drafts
- at-fates-hands 10y agoAre we finally at the tipping point where everything you build, will be built with JS from soup to nuts? Houdini looks like its trying to do just that.
- GeneralMaximus 10y ago> Are we finally at the tipping point where everything you build, will be built with JS from soup to nuts? That doesn't sound implausible. In fact, it sounds like a great idea. As long as performance and security don't suffer, more and more browser internals should be opened up to JS developers so that we don't have to wait for all browsers vendors to implement specific features before we get to use them.
- madeofpalk 10y ago> this layout thingamajig would be delegated to libraries This is actually happening. The major vendor libraries are working on API's to give JS library authors the ability to hook into the browser layout process and define their own layout mechanisms