4 ms·
Exact same feeling I have about web apps. We could be using an app-centric XML-like language¹ for the UI, and an app-centric protocol versus a stateless² one w
by Slackwise 9y ago
Exact same feeling I have about web apps.
We could be using an app-centric XML-like language¹ for the UI, and an app-centric protocol versus a stateless² one where we apply hacks like cookies and WebSockets to. Instead we're hacking on top of a document-oriented system, and the hacks feel like they're 10 layers deep now.
¹ Similar to XAML or XUL, in concept and example.
² Statelessness is a great default, but when you need it, it shouldn't be an awful hack.
- tyingq 9y agoIt is funny how we've regressed. For CRUD apps that don't do anything graphical, the current crop of web apps don't do anything better than a mainframe and a 3270 terminal did 50+ years ago. And the man-hours required to produce and maintain them is much higher.
- kasey_junk 9y agoThat is an extreme simplification. Modern crud apps run from essentially any network in the world on hardware of every conceivable form factor and vendor. The protocol is open and so obvious it is routinely taught to middle school children. All of those things are significantly different than a mainframe/term setup
- tyingq 9y agoI disagree. TN3270 runs on essentially any network in the world, and has existed for quite some time. I am scoping this down to CRUD apps that are text and labels.
- kasey_junk 9y ago50 years ago it ran only on a single proprietary physical medium on bespoke hardware.
- tyingq 9y agoAmdahl was an option.
- baddox 9y agoI'm currently on my phone on a streetcar in San Francisco. I'm pretty confident there's one of those platforms I could access now with the greatest of ease, and the other would take some doing.
- arielb1 9y agoIf you don't care about "making it pretty", you can make a cookie-cutter 3270-style UI pretty easily.
- icebraining 9y agoFor CRUD apps that don't do anything graphical, the current crop of web apps don't do anything better than a mainframe and a 3270 terminal did 50+ years ago. It's not actually true (unicode alone is a big improvement), but even if it was, so what? If a technology already fulfilled those needs pretty well, why would you expect major improvements to arise? The improvements come from the fact that you don't have to restrict yourself to text and labels.
- kmicklas 9y ago> why would you expect major improvements to arise? Maybe not, but you certainly shouldn't expect a regression, which is exactly what we're witnessing.
- icebraining 9y agoI would. A more general system will (almost?) always be less efficient than a single-purpose system, at that specific purpose.
- kmicklas 9y agoI don't think modern CRUD apps are necessarily more general. They're just built on top of many more layers of broken abstractions.
- icebraining 9y agoYou don't think that modern CRUD apps do anything besides showing text and labels?
- tyingq 9y agoI mentioned the man hours to build and maintain. That should have been an area for progress. It wasn't.
- icebraining 9y ago
- dredmorbius 9y agoI first heard the "but ... the Web is just Mainframe terminals" realisation about 1997-98 or so. And there's a fair bit of truth to that.
- ianai 9y agoI'd like to see that too.
- icebraining 9y agoWe could be using an app-centric XML-like language¹ for the UI, and an app-centric protocol versus a stateless² one where we apply hacks like cookies and WebSockets to. You can: just write a C# or whatever app, and use some stateful protocol. In any case, I find the whole "layers deep" to be a major overstatement. WebSockets are essentially framed TCP sockets, with a single initial handshake that looks like HTTP. They are not a "layer" over HTTP or anything like that.
- Slackwise 9y agoI was talking about web apps. Of course I can use something different, just not on the web. (Since Silverlight is dead, that is.)