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There has been a recurring theme in the comments: "You don't just replace HTML with something else and non standard overnight." Perhaps, I should clarify... In
by martin_ky 9y ago
There has been a recurring theme in the comments: "You don't just replace HTML with something else and non standard overnight."
Perhaps, I should clarify... In my blog, I don't call for replacement of any current web technology. I am simply proposing an alternative client language that would exist side-by-side with current tech. Purely from technical perspective I believe QML could be this language, because unlike HTML, it was purpose-designed from the beginning as a UI language.
It does not mean rewriting browsers from scratch either. QML and the Qt Quick library share many aspects and technologies with any HTML browser - a JavaScript core, a web access network stack, utilizing native graphics acceleration APIs. So already there would be many common shared components. In my idea, QML would be just another frontend (language) reusing those components. Although implementing QML on top of current tech (HTML+JS+WebGL) is also within the realm of possibility, it's entirely not what I had in mind and would defeat the purpose.
I also don't want to add any non-standard extensions or plugins to existing browsers. What I would like to see, is QML being adopted as a new web standard. I realize this does not happen overnight and that there are political, commercial, licensing and consensual prerequisites that need to be solved first. It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of Digia and KDAB (the companies behind Qt) on this.
From a technical standpoint, I don't see any obstacles why this could not happen. QML is conceptually a simple language and I think it could be standardized relatively easily. The next step would be to standardize the library of UI elements (Qt Quick) or its minimal viable subset for version 1.