5 ms·

Sounds like my worst nightmare. Browsers won't and should never have the full capabilities of native APIs. It's certain that many more applications will shift i

Sounds like my worst nightmare. Browsers won't and should never have the full capabilities of native APIs. It's certain that many more applications will shift into web apps, but there are limits to what I'll want my browser to do.

bitL 10y ago
It's more like you won't need to develop for two-three targets, like today with desktop, web and mobile. Instead you will use the same runtime, though there might be some restrictions on each platform you'd need to take into account (like handling permissions properly) and make sure your code would work on any platform that provides the capabilities you require.
- Sanddancer 10y ago
  Java promised that, but we got write-once, debug anywhere. Those different features, bugs, permissions, etc, mean you'll still have to test the platforms, build up different UIs for each platform, etc. About all you'd end up gaining is a stylesheet-based rendering engine, but you'd get that with something like XAML as well.
  - bobajeff 10y ago
    Java doesn't support compiling C/C++ to their runtime. So that's not really comparable to this.
    - Sanddancer 10y ago
      There is a currently dead project that does that https://github.com/davidar/lljvm https://github.com/davidar/lljvm . So I'd argue it is comparable.
      - bobajeff 10y ago
        Like you said it's dead. Hypotheticals don't matter here only real tools we can use today.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    WebAssembly is much simpler than Java, and harder to get wrong. The DOM isn't, but I would hope non-web targets for WebAssembly would use different (and simpler) APIs.
pekk 10y ago
This battle was lost decades ago, along with semantic markup and needing to enable Javascript to see any text. I don't like it either, but the market took the shortest available path to what it was seeking and now there is no way anyone will roll it back.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Yes there is, iOS, Android and UWP.
  - TuringTest 10y ago
    How well are Android and iOS running in your desktop?
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      You forgot UWP from my list, and that runs just fine. As for desktop as such, my tablets are also fine with an external keyboard and the right set of native apps.
      - TuringTest 10y ago
        I deliberately didn't ask about UWP because then I would have had to ask "how well does UWP work on a Unix desktop".
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Not everyone cares about UNIX desktops, specially looking at changes at Apple and their sales.
        TuringTest 10y ago
        When the topic discussed is software that can run on any platform, you have to care about UNIX desktop, otherwise you're cheating - or at least not providing a solution to the problem as was stated.

bitL 10y ago

It's more like you won't need to develop for two-three targets, like today with desktop, web and mobile. Instead you will use the same runtime, though there might be some restrictions on each platform you'd need to take into account (like handling permissions properly) and make sure your code would work on any platform that provides the capabilities you require.

Sanddancer 10y ago
Java promised that, but we got write-once, debug anywhere. Those different features, bugs, permissions, etc, mean you'll still have to test the platforms, build up different UIs for each platform, etc. About all you'd end up gaining is a stylesheet-based rendering engine, but you'd get that with something like XAML as well.
- bobajeff 10y ago
  Java doesn't support compiling C/C++ to their runtime. So that's not really comparable to this.
  - Sanddancer 10y ago
    There is a currently dead project that does that https://github.com/davidar/lljvm https://github.com/davidar/lljvm . So I'd argue it is comparable.
    - bobajeff 10y ago
      Like you said it's dead. Hypotheticals don't matter here only real tools we can use today.
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  WebAssembly is much simpler than Java, and harder to get wrong. The DOM isn't, but I would hope non-web targets for WebAssembly would use different (and simpler) APIs.

pekk 10y ago

This battle was lost decades ago, along with semantic markup and needing to enable Javascript to see any text. I don't like it either, but the market took the shortest available path to what it was seeking and now there is no way anyone will roll it back.

pjmlp 10y ago
Yes there is, iOS, Android and UWP.
- TuringTest 10y ago
  How well are Android and iOS running in your desktop?
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    You forgot UWP from my list, and that runs just fine. As for desktop as such, my tablets are also fine with an external keyboard and the right set of native apps.
    - TuringTest 10y ago
      I deliberately didn't ask about UWP because then I would have had to ask "how well does UWP work on a Unix desktop".
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        Not everyone cares about UNIX desktops, specially looking at changes at Apple and their sales.
        TuringTest 10y ago
        When the topic discussed is software that can run on any platform, you have to care about UNIX desktop, otherwise you're cheating - or at least not providing a solution to the problem as was stated.