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While i understand the article and agree with it, i love programming webapps. The combination of html/CSS is much easier (for me at least) to work with than mos

While i understand the article and agree with it, i love programming webapps. The combination of html/CSS is much easier (for me at least) to work with than most other rendering framework, also JavaScript while not perfect is very good for fast moving target, and with "extension" like typescript you can even manage very large application in a progressive way (you can mix js and typescript). I also work with the android layout system and a bit of the iOs one, and they are a lot more confusing, (Constraint-layout fixed a couple of problem on android recently). Currently i work manly with legacy asp.net app at work, and shiny all-js webapps at home, but i done a lot of work also with winform and android apps Also the ability to update the app "on the fly" and be able to download only the part of the application that you need is pretty cool. Your can make your user always use the last version and quickly deploy hotfix. I understand that this are not propriety desirable for every type of application but sometimes are game-changer. What i really want to have is a lighter implementation, i think that Facebook did something similar with is Facebook lite app. Here's a gist with what i really want for a layout/app runtime. * Using a Url style system for retrieving resource. * A binary protocol similar to protobuf,capnproto etc.. for talking with the server. * A clear separation between the template and the data, so that i can cache the entire page and only request the data for populating it. * A Module and a Permission system, with versioning (for backward and forward compatibly),maybe integrated. * One way to store data (i personaly like key-value system, but i think a document system would be more suitable). * A Unified syntax for html and css. * a Component system(this is a big one), ideally the spec should only define a div-style generic container that can be specialised in a new component by adding to it, a name, style and optionally a script witch control is behaviour, (I'm not a fan of the web-component spec as it is). What would you want from an alternative layout/runtime system for web-like app? I'm really curious! PS: I really hope there will be more engineering post about the Facebook lite app, it seem a concept really cool that could be used for a lot of other apps! edit: adjusting formatting

dmitriid 9y ago
> The combination of html/CSS is much easier (for me at least) to work with than most other rendering framewor Html+css is not a rendering framework. Also, come back with your "much easier" when you need to do anything even remotely resembling iOS's screen transitions, animations, and capabilities for constrained layout. Even properly implementing the seemingly simple toolbar in Google Docs is an excercise in endless frustration.
- hexmiles 9y ago
  My bad, i didn't express myself, for rendering framework i mean both the language and the technology that actually "execute" them. I understand that different browser do thing different but the concept are the same. Also i don't know ios very well, but i have implemented complex layout in both android and the html/css/js and i can say that android is MUCH more frustrating, even when we consider browser backward compatibility, especialy on the animation side (css animations were a bit hard at first, but in little time i was able to construct complex animation very quickly). I actually have builded a toolbar like the one on google docs (which i use daily) for editing data in a timeline for appointment, which had to be compatible with IE8 and while there was a lot of pain, i was able to iterate and experimentate a lot more quickly than android, and it wasn't that bad, also in my experience when we talk about layout and user interface there is A LOT more documentation on html/css than android, and there also are more framework/library that can help you deal with browser diffrence.
  - dmitriid 9y ago
    This only means that Android managed to create something that's wors than html+css, which is quite an achievement. Meanwhile, for every small thing that you need on the web you need to reinvent things from scratch. Animations. Lists/virtual lists. Containers. Toolbars. Menus. Keyboard shortcuts. Constrained layouts. Layouts in general. Interactions. Combinations of anything above. Any basic UI component and interaction you can think of is non-existent on the web, and is re-implemented poorly and inconsistently by an infinite number of various UI frameworks.
    - hexmiles 9y ago
      The css is the part i will leave mostly the same, i will change the syntax a bit, but mantain the functionality.

dmitriid 9y ago

> The combination of html/CSS is much easier (for me at least) to work with than most other rendering framewor Html+css is not a rendering framework. Also, come back with your "much easier" when you need to do anything even remotely resembling iOS's screen transitions, animations, and capabilities for constrained layout. Even properly implementing the seemingly simple toolbar in Google Docs is an excercise in endless frustration.

hexmiles 9y ago
My bad, i didn't express myself, for rendering framework i mean both the language and the technology that actually "execute" them. I understand that different browser do thing different but the concept are the same. Also i don't know ios very well, but i have implemented complex layout in both android and the html/css/js and i can say that android is MUCH more frustrating, even when we consider browser backward compatibility, especialy on the animation side (css animations were a bit hard at first, but in little time i was able to construct complex animation very quickly). I actually have builded a toolbar like the one on google docs (which i use daily) for editing data in a timeline for appointment, which had to be compatible with IE8 and while there was a lot of pain, i was able to iterate and experimentate a lot more quickly than android, and it wasn't that bad, also in my experience when we talk about layout and user interface there is A LOT more documentation on html/css than android, and there also are more framework/library that can help you deal with browser diffrence.
- dmitriid 9y ago
  This only means that Android managed to create something that's wors than html+css, which is quite an achievement. Meanwhile, for every small thing that you need on the web you need to reinvent things from scratch. Animations. Lists/virtual lists. Containers. Toolbars. Menus. Keyboard shortcuts. Constrained layouts. Layouts in general. Interactions. Combinations of anything above. Any basic UI component and interaction you can think of is non-existent on the web, and is re-implemented poorly and inconsistently by an infinite number of various UI frameworks.
  - hexmiles 9y ago
    The css is the part i will leave mostly the same, i will change the syntax a bit, but mantain the functionality.