6 ms·

The benefits you acknowledge (distribution) are not because of the tech but in spite of it. At the end of the day all it would take is one of the 3 major brows

The benefits you acknowledge (distribution) are not because of the tech but in spite of it. At the end of the day all it would take is one of the 3 major browser vendors to offer an alternative. That alternative could be distributed to a large percentage of desktops in a relatively quick manner saving billions if not trillions of dollars in wasted productivity. It will never happen though. * EDIT: This comes from someone who uses React, Redux, webpack, etc.. daily

goldbeck 10y ago
If this is such a good and valuable idea, why will it never happen? Seems the major internet-interface makers (Google via Chrome, FB via their app, for ex), are vying for control over the way people develop web applications too. Making an alternative that gets adopted would be invaluable to them.
- jpk 10y ago
  It won't happen because none of them will implement the other guy's new thing. Chrome would do the Google thing, Edge would do the Microsoft thing, and Firefox would sit back and balk that none of that junk is standardized. Then webdevs would just stick with Javascript and friends because it's the only thing that mostly works everywhere. That's exactly what happened to Dart, right? It had aspirations of hopping into Chrome along side JS but who else was going to put it in their browser? Now it's just another thing that compiles to Javascript because that's the only way you'd get anybody to adopt it.
  - tannhaeuser 10y ago
    You could also see it the other way around. That we've come pretty far with standardization based on JavaScript and HTML5 (and CSS and SQL and POSIX and IP ...). What do you expect exactly?
  - jfoutz 10y ago
    Mozilla is probably in the best position to do something. If it's good enough to get developers to switch and rave about it, ms and google will follow to keep mindshare.
    - tannhaeuser 10y ago
      JavaScript was invented by Netscape, the predecessor of Mozilla. Also Firefox came out in a phase of browser stagnation, but Chrome in particular and the other browsers are so powerful today that I'm more worried we're going to loose web standards to "whatever WebKit does". So I wouln't hold my breath.
  - bigato 10y ago
    Not true, see webassembly.
    - jpk 10y ago
      The parent and grandparent were talking about unilaterally developed tech, "At the end of the day all it would take is one of the 3 major browser vendors to offer an alternative." etc The correct comparison there is Dart. WebAssembly is a joint effort being developed by a team comprised of folks from every major browser vendor, so it isn't really an example of what they're talking about.
ZenoArrow 10y ago
>"At the end of the day all it would take is one of the 3 major browser vendors to offer an alternative." You mean like Dart? Besides, languages that target WebAssembly are almost certainly going to evolve to fit that space.
- cies 10y ago
  > Besides, languages that target WebAssembly are almost certainly going to evolve to fit that space. And are already but now targeting JS. Like PureScript, ReasonML, Elm and even TypeScipt to some extend.
- cubano 10y ago
  I have serious doubts that WebAssembly is really going to come to dominate the web the way many people here seem to believe it will. The idea that all of sudden there is going to be a rush to push compiled/closed sites after so many very successful years of using free-and-open stacks seems rather non-logical to me. Time will tell.
  - azernik 10y ago
    The success of the JavaScript stack was not dependent on source being shipped to the browser, and the push for WebAssembly is not motivated by keeping source away from the browser.
    - toyg 10y ago
      What? It absolutely was. Whole generations of today's JS people trained themselves with View Source.
      - nine_k 10y ago
        ....decompiling minified Javascript? Sorry, this ship has sailed.
      - mathw 10y ago
        That was before minification. I think that ship already sailed.
julian_1 10y ago
No-one could even agree on making HTML5 valid XML - in order to leverage all the tools and knowledge that exist in that space. Not that I even like XML. But having another XML dialect that's not actual XML shows that the only hope is to build valid tools and abstractions on top of all the crud.
- kyrias 10y ago
  > But having another XML dialect that's not actual XML… HTML is based on SGML, it was never an XML dialect.
- tannhaeuser 10y ago
  There's nothing "not actual XMLish" about HTML. HTML is formally describable in its entirety using SGML (see my project at http://sgmljs.net/blog/blog1701.html http://sgmljs.net/blog/blog1701.html), just not by the XML fragment of SGML.
  - julian_1 10y ago
    Is it possible to scrape random html5 pages off of the internet and transform them with xslt 2? Or write content/metadata schemas (distinct from a DTD schema that simply describes html5) using XSD? Unlike xhtml, my understanding, was that the current tooling around XML won't just work out-of-the-box for html5.
    - cwyers 10y ago
      You're missing the point. HTML wasn't XML because XML didn't exist then. SGML did. XML is a "an SGML dialect that's not actual SGML," not the other way around. The people who designed XML knew the SGML spec, as they wrote XML as a subset of it, and they knew what was in HTML. They could have written XML so that HTML conformed. They chose not to. But the HTML spec at the time was absolutely conformant SGML.
    - tannhaeuser 10y ago
      What cwyers said. Plus, XML was designed to replace HTML as XHTML, but it didn't happen. Doesn't mean you need to give up markup processing alltogether. Just use full SGML, which has additional features such as tag omission/inference and other markup minimization features for text authoring not in the XML profile of full SGML such as markdown and custom Wiki syntax support. You might actually like it. You can parse HTML 5 into XML using my HTML 5 DTD [1] and eg. OpenSP's osx tool or my upcoming sgmljs.net tool. What do you have against DTDs? They do the same as XSD, and then some. [1]: http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html
Bombthecat 10y ago
Dart is shipped with chrome, or not? I don't see any huge success :)
- bigato 10y ago
  Not anymore: https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6682831673622528 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6682831673622528
bigato 10y ago
That already happened and is called webassembly. And it is backed by not one, but all of the major browsers.

goldbeck 10y ago

If this is such a good and valuable idea, why will it never happen? Seems the major internet-interface makers (Google via Chrome, FB via their app, for ex), are vying for control over the way people develop web applications too. Making an alternative that gets adopted would be invaluable to them.

jpk 10y ago
It won't happen because none of them will implement the other guy's new thing. Chrome would do the Google thing, Edge would do the Microsoft thing, and Firefox would sit back and balk that none of that junk is standardized. Then webdevs would just stick with Javascript and friends because it's the only thing that mostly works everywhere. That's exactly what happened to Dart, right? It had aspirations of hopping into Chrome along side JS but who else was going to put it in their browser? Now it's just another thing that compiles to Javascript because that's the only way you'd get anybody to adopt it.
- tannhaeuser 10y ago
  You could also see it the other way around. That we've come pretty far with standardization based on JavaScript and HTML5 (and CSS and SQL and POSIX and IP ...). What do you expect exactly?
- jfoutz 10y ago
  Mozilla is probably in the best position to do something. If it's good enough to get developers to switch and rave about it, ms and google will follow to keep mindshare.
  - tannhaeuser 10y ago
    JavaScript was invented by Netscape, the predecessor of Mozilla. Also Firefox came out in a phase of browser stagnation, but Chrome in particular and the other browsers are so powerful today that I'm more worried we're going to loose web standards to "whatever WebKit does". So I wouln't hold my breath.
- bigato 10y ago
  Not true, see webassembly.
  - jpk 10y ago
    The parent and grandparent were talking about unilaterally developed tech, "At the end of the day all it would take is one of the 3 major browser vendors to offer an alternative." etc The correct comparison there is Dart. WebAssembly is a joint effort being developed by a team comprised of folks from every major browser vendor, so it isn't really an example of what they're talking about.

ZenoArrow 10y ago

>"At the end of the day all it would take is one of the 3 major browser vendors to offer an alternative." You mean like Dart? Besides, languages that target WebAssembly are almost certainly going to evolve to fit that space.

cies 10y ago
> Besides, languages that target WebAssembly are almost certainly going to evolve to fit that space. And are already but now targeting JS. Like PureScript, ReasonML, Elm and even TypeScipt to some extend.
cubano 10y ago
I have serious doubts that WebAssembly is really going to come to dominate the web the way many people here seem to believe it will. The idea that all of sudden there is going to be a rush to push compiled/closed sites after so many very successful years of using free-and-open stacks seems rather non-logical to me. Time will tell.
- azernik 10y ago
  The success of the JavaScript stack was not dependent on source being shipped to the browser, and the push for WebAssembly is not motivated by keeping source away from the browser.
  - toyg 10y ago
    What? It absolutely was. Whole generations of today's JS people trained themselves with View Source.
    - nine_k 10y ago
      ....decompiling minified Javascript? Sorry, this ship has sailed.
    - mathw 10y ago
      That was before minification. I think that ship already sailed.

julian_1 10y ago

No-one could even agree on making HTML5 valid XML - in order to leverage all the tools and knowledge that exist in that space. Not that I even like XML. But having another XML dialect that's not actual XML shows that the only hope is to build valid tools and abstractions on top of all the crud.

kyrias 10y ago
> But having another XML dialect that's not actual XML… HTML is based on SGML, it was never an XML dialect.
tannhaeuser 10y ago
There's nothing "not actual XMLish" about HTML. HTML is formally describable in its entirety using SGML (see my project at http://sgmljs.net/blog/blog1701.html http://sgmljs.net/blog/blog1701.html), just not by the XML fragment of SGML.
- julian_1 10y ago
  Is it possible to scrape random html5 pages off of the internet and transform them with xslt 2? Or write content/metadata schemas (distinct from a DTD schema that simply describes html5) using XSD? Unlike xhtml, my understanding, was that the current tooling around XML won't just work out-of-the-box for html5.
  - cwyers 10y ago
    You're missing the point. HTML wasn't XML because XML didn't exist then. SGML did. XML is a "an SGML dialect that's not actual SGML," not the other way around. The people who designed XML knew the SGML spec, as they wrote XML as a subset of it, and they knew what was in HTML. They could have written XML so that HTML conformed. They chose not to. But the HTML spec at the time was absolutely conformant SGML.
  - tannhaeuser 10y ago
    What cwyers said. Plus, XML was designed to replace HTML as XHTML, but it didn't happen. Doesn't mean you need to give up markup processing alltogether. Just use full SGML, which has additional features such as tag omission/inference and other markup minimization features for text authoring not in the XML profile of full SGML such as markdown and custom Wiki syntax support. You might actually like it. You can parse HTML 5 into XML using my HTML 5 DTD [1] and eg. OpenSP's osx tool or my upcoming sgmljs.net tool. What do you have against DTDs? They do the same as XSD, and then some. [1]: http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html

Bombthecat 10y ago

Dart is shipped with chrome, or not? I don't see any huge success :)

bigato 10y ago
Not anymore: https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6682831673622528 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6682831673622528

bigato 10y ago

That already happened and is called webassembly. And it is backed by not one, but all of the major browsers.