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I sympathize with the sentiment, but the web app only sucks if you're using the stuff that sucks. Like any technology with decades of evolution it has a thick
by avaer 9y ago
I sympathize with the sentiment, but the web app only sucks if you're using the stuff that sucks.
Like any technology with decades of evolution it has a thick sediment of peat. Half of Javascript, half of Windows, even half of *nix is garbage you should never use, but it's all there because old things would stop working without it.
It's just that the web has a very low barrier to entry and very high reach, so the compost doesn't get thrown out as quickly as it should. So people still pack jQuery when they need to select elements, or pull a left pad from npm without realizing it's in the language core. Or pack Reactiflux when they want to do a form.
In an age where you can literally compile existing, GPU-heavy C++ code to WebAssembly and run it in the browser with no fuss, you can't complain the web doesn't let you do things right, or at least the way you want. It's just admittedly easy to hop on the wrong library bandwagon and complain when things go wrong. But it's not a problem with the web.
- vvanders 9y agoHaving written things targeting WASM, when you can provide me an environment like Visual Studio that has breakpoints(including data) and a debugging I can step then we can talk. Until then WASM is cool, but not nearly as productive for C++ as the native platforms.
- smitherfield 9y agoWe could've had that years ago if Mozilla had not (as all the browser vendors do depressingly often[1]) decided to torpedo NaCl for nonsensical reasons that boil down to "NIH," in favor of creating a far-inferior, crippled spec practically designed to be aimlessly bikeshedded for years. [1] Mozilla usually pulls such NIH moves to sabotage the introduction or use of languages (even DSLs) other than JS on the web. See also: WebSQL, Dart, HTML5 vs plugins, HTML5 vs XHTML2. Whether you agreed with their position on those disputes or not, you have to admit there's a pattern. Again, not picking on Mozilla, everyone's an offender: Microsoft generally slows things down so their browsers don't get too outdated, Apple pursues vendettas against competitors and is myopically focused on moving mobile forward while neglecting desktop, Google's constantly attempting to muscle through user/privacy-hostile misfeatures and highly-specialized features that improve their own web apps more than the web as a whole.
- hutzlibu 9y agoErm, "Mozilla usually pulls such NIH moves to sabotage the introduction or use of languages (even DSLs) other than JS on the web." maybe it is also because their ressources are limited and implementing a new language like dart is somewhat expensive. And NaCL even more I think. But I actually have some anger as well on them for enforcing indexedDB and killing everything else. So now we have to use f indexedDB for storing things locally. You apparently would have prefered WebSQL, I would have liked FileAPI. Still, I don't believe it is out of evil attempt, just limited ressources mixed with stubbornness.
- smitherfield 9y agoAgain, if it were a one-time thing it'd be different, but it's a pattern with Mozilla. > maybe it is also because their ressources are limited and implementing a new language like dart is somewhat expensive. And NaCL even more I think. If I recall correctly, Google offered to donate their engineers' time to implement Dart and/or NaCl in Firefox and Mozilla still refused. Also, WebAssembly is enormously more complex to implement than NaCl. And, both of these events occurred while Mozilla was napalming skyscraperfuls of $100 bills with their Firefox OS nonsense. BTW, of the things I mentioned the only ones I'm really "angry" at Mozilla for are WebSQL and NaCl, the others I can see both sides.
- hutzlibu 9y ago"Google offered to donate their engineers' time to implement Dart and/or NaCl in Firefox and Mozilla still refused." I did not know that - that is really a bad move. "while Mozilla was napalming skyscraperfuls of $100 bills with their Firefox OS nonsense." Well, I do not believe Firefox OS was nonsense. It was maybe just too ambitious and too many mistakes were made, like focus on low end. But allmost all of the development for Firefox OS directly helped also the Web in general, because most work, was work on WebStandards anyway. Just the ones for calling and sms you cannot really use, but all the other things like battery were beneficial.
- TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
- rayiner 9y agoThe web is way worse and less coherent than something like Cocoa, even though Cocoa is older. That’s because the former was designed for text documents.
- smitherfield 9y agoSlight bit of pedantry: only the AppKit (1989) component of Cocoa predates the web (1990) while Foundation and Core Data (both 1994) came later. Of course, many nowadays-integral features of the web also came after its initial release, such as CGI and the <form> and <img> tags (all 1993), cookies and HTTPS (both 1994), Javascript (1995), HTTP headers, methods other than GET, non-ASCII text encodings and CSS (all 1996), AJAX (1999), and the <video> tag (2007). Anyhow, I'm in full agreement. The web honestly isn't even that good a design for [hyper]text documents; HyperCard (as one example among many) was a great deal better, and better for graphical and multimedia content, and for applications too. Of course HyperCard wasn't cross-platform or served over a network, but it easily could've been adapted to be.
- dmitriid 9y ago> but the web app only sucks if you're using the stuff that sucks. Please show me anything that doesn't suck on the web. And yes, I've been doing web development for close to 17 years now. There's almost nothing that doesn't suck on the web. The languages, the tooling, the platform - you name it. It is good for one thing, and one thing only: displaying single-page interlinked documents with little to no embedded media. Any and all other attempts to make it do anything else end up bloated incomplete internally inconsistent overlapping monstrosities.
- kuon 9y agoI have been using elm for some time now, and it's the first time I feel I am using a non broken tool.
- dustinfarris 9y agoAgreed, I learned Elm a year ago and haven’t looked back. Love being able to dismiss all other frontend web talk without a second thought.
- eagsalazar2 9y agoYou should really change careers.