4 ms·

If you stop thinking like a front-end web dev, and take a step back from the whole thing, the status quo is truly insane and embarrassing. A many-billion dollar

by psyc 10y ago

If you stop thinking like a front-end web dev, and take a step back from the whole thing, the status quo is truly insane and embarrassing. A many-billion dollar, world changing industry has been exclusively constrained to one dynamically-typed, weird language cooked up by one guy in a hurry, over 20 years ago. How can such a phenomenon even exist, without programmers falling over themselves to create a development ecosystem with compilers and multiple language paradigms? The best answer I can come up with is that the history of web development is rooted in a culture that cares only about product design, user experience, and making a million dollars fast. It took a long time for systems programmers to get interested enough to provide the perspective of, well, a systems programmer. It could be argued that not rocking the boat, and just accepting JS as the standard unconditionally, helped the web succeed. I don't agree with that. I don't see how having a good execution environment in the browser in 2004 could possibly have hurt the web.

speg 10y ago
Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.
- true_religion 10y ago
  I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    You're in the minority.
    - lj3 10y ago
      No, he's not. My mother runs Firefox, Chrome and IE. She uses each one for different sites because certain sites only work well on certain browsers. PS: The idea that the web has parity is a joke. It doesn't.
      - scarface74 10y ago
        What sites these days work better with Firefox?
        lj3 10y ago
        She prefers to use firefox, but Gmail works better in Chrome and her bank's site works better in IE. You're correct in that nothing works better in firefox, but it's what she's used to.
        tyingq 10y ago
        Sites with SHA1 certs.
      - mcphage 10y ago
        You actually think the majority of users either do, or want to, use multiple browsers to manage site incompatibilities? Have you not met any people before?
  - psyc 10y ago
    Among the sites I visit frequently are several that only work well in Opera, one or two that only work well in Firefox, and one that only works at all in Chrome.
    - jameshart 10y ago
      I struggle to imagine how I would build a site that only works in Opera, even if I were trying to.
      - psyc 10y ago
        Load it up with whatever bloat causes every browser other than Opera to struggle at every moment with scrolling a page. Which is absolutely the case on my 4 year old laptop. For whatever reason, Opera handles this like a dream, while Firefox and Chrome cannot, though I frequently go back and try them again.
        scarface74 10y ago
        Load it up with whatever bloat causes every browser other than Opera to struggle at every moment with scrolling a page. Which is absolutely the case on my 4 year old laptop. For whatever reason, Opera handles this like a dream, while Firefox and Chrome cannot, though I frequently go back and try them again. Opera and Chrome use the same rendering engine now. Why would Opera work better than Chrome? The second question is what type of computer is it? I have an old Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop/4GB RAM (circa 2009) that I've repurposed as a Plex Server. After installing an ad blocker and getting rid of unnecessary services, I don't notice a real world difference between that and my usual laptop - a Core I7 2.66Ghz - except for the difference between an SSD and a 5400rpm hard drive. Web browsing is just not that processor intensive - a four year old A6x iPad can browse the modern web well.
        psyc 10y ago
        Cool, guy, I must be imagining the whole thing. Every day.
  - progval 10y ago
    It wouldn't be half/half, because many websites would then abstain from using a scripting language at all. Maybe more something like 90% pure HTML/CSS, 5% Firefox, 5% Chrome?
    - douche 10y ago
      > 90% pure HTML/CSS Like in the good old days
- psyc 10y ago
  If barely-passable, but mostly imaginary compatibility could be achieved on JS and CSS, then it could have been achieved with something like WebAssembly. That it wasn't is just history and incentives.
scarface74 10y ago
A many-billion dollar, world changing industry has been exclusively constrained to one dynamically-typed, weird language cooked up by one guy in a hurry, over 20 years ago. I'm definitely not a lover of JavaScript as a language, but it helps when you start thinking about JS as a "assembly language for the web". Very few people get worked up about whether x86 assembly language is a bad language we've for the most part moved on to a higher level of abstraction. The same could be true for JavaScript. When I have to use JavaScript without TypeScript especially with a codebase that I'm not familiar with, it's like walking on a tightrope not knowing what you might break. You're always afraid of doing refactorimgs that would be a CTRL-K away with Resharper.
- psyc 10y ago
  Kudos to Emscripten and the like for doing the best possible thing here, but if you STOP thinking like a front-end web dev, then low-level code is designed to be low-level code.

by psyc 10y ago

speg 10y ago

Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.

true_religion 10y ago
I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.
- mcphage 10y ago
  You're in the minority.
  - lj3 10y ago
    No, he's not. My mother runs Firefox, Chrome and IE. She uses each one for different sites because certain sites only work well on certain browsers. PS: The idea that the web has parity is a joke. It doesn't.
    - scarface74 10y ago
      What sites these days work better with Firefox?
      - lj3 10y ago
        She prefers to use firefox, but Gmail works better in Chrome and her bank's site works better in IE. You're correct in that nothing works better in firefox, but it's what she's used to.
      - tyingq 10y ago
        Sites with SHA1 certs.
    - mcphage 10y ago
      You actually think the majority of users either do, or want to, use multiple browsers to manage site incompatibilities? Have you not met any people before?
- psyc 10y ago
  Among the sites I visit frequently are several that only work well in Opera, one or two that only work well in Firefox, and one that only works at all in Chrome.
  - jameshart 10y ago
    I struggle to imagine how I would build a site that only works in Opera, even if I were trying to.
    - psyc 10y ago
      Load it up with whatever bloat causes every browser other than Opera to struggle at every moment with scrolling a page. Which is absolutely the case on my 4 year old laptop. For whatever reason, Opera handles this like a dream, while Firefox and Chrome cannot, though I frequently go back and try them again.
      - scarface74 10y ago
        Load it up with whatever bloat causes every browser other than Opera to struggle at every moment with scrolling a page. Which is absolutely the case on my 4 year old laptop. For whatever reason, Opera handles this like a dream, while Firefox and Chrome cannot, though I frequently go back and try them again. Opera and Chrome use the same rendering engine now. Why would Opera work better than Chrome? The second question is what type of computer is it? I have an old Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop/4GB RAM (circa 2009) that I've repurposed as a Plex Server. After installing an ad blocker and getting rid of unnecessary services, I don't notice a real world difference between that and my usual laptop - a Core I7 2.66Ghz - except for the difference between an SSD and a 5400rpm hard drive. Web browsing is just not that processor intensive - a four year old A6x iPad can browse the modern web well.
        psyc 10y ago
        Cool, guy, I must be imagining the whole thing. Every day.
- progval 10y ago
  It wouldn't be half/half, because many websites would then abstain from using a scripting language at all. Maybe more something like 90% pure HTML/CSS, 5% Firefox, 5% Chrome?
  - douche 10y ago
    > 90% pure HTML/CSS Like in the good old days
psyc 10y ago
If barely-passable, but mostly imaginary compatibility could be achieved on JS and CSS, then it could have been achieved with something like WebAssembly. That it wasn't is just history and incentives.

scarface74 10y ago

A many-billion dollar, world changing industry has been exclusively constrained to one dynamically-typed, weird language cooked up by one guy in a hurry, over 20 years ago. I'm definitely not a lover of JavaScript as a language, but it helps when you start thinking about JS as a "assembly language for the web". Very few people get worked up about whether x86 assembly language is a bad language we've for the most part moved on to a higher level of abstraction. The same could be true for JavaScript. When I have to use JavaScript without TypeScript especially with a codebase that I'm not familiar with, it's like walking on a tightrope not knowing what you might break. You're always afraid of doing refactorimgs that would be a CTRL-K away with Resharper.

psyc 10y ago
Kudos to Emscripten and the like for doing the best possible thing here, but if you STOP thinking like a front-end web dev, then low-level code is designed to be low-level code.