6 ms·

Yesterday I was thinking about the same issue that OP outlined. I tend to agree that all the SPA hype and all the additional levels of abstraction on top of HTM

Yesterday I was thinking about the same issue that OP outlined. I tend to agree that all the SPA hype and all the additional levels of abstraction on top of HTML+JS+CSS need to go in favour of lightweight readable dead-simple sites, this is what the web is meant for in the end. For apps we have apps. Imagine this. You know you can script JS in photoshop. So someone comes with the "brilliant" idea and solution of making apps by scripting PSDs. Suddenly all the rage comes and every dude out there boasts his new psd-app development skills on their resumes. And everyone forgets that the JS right there in Photoshop is for PSD scripting, not for making apps. Same here - CSS is for styling HTML documents. JS is for making documents a bit more interactive (think, "click that button to view some visualization"). The web environment was not made for apps and it shouldnt have apps developed on it.

hellofunk 9y ago
> I tend to agree that all the SPA hype and all the additional levels of abstraction on top of HTML+JS+CSS need to go in favour of lightweight readable dead-simple sites, this is what the web is meant for in the end. For apps we have apps. I kind of disagree. The web is no longer about a single consistent form of content. You have sites. And you have web apps. They are not the same thing. When people ask me what I do for a living, I say, "I write web apps." They often say, "oh, cool, I've been looking for a web designer." I say, "no, I don't really do web design for web sites, I build software applications that run on a web page." So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. But that doesn't mean one should disappear. That's up to designers to understand, not really for users to understand.
- scandox 9y ago
  This is a true description of the current situation. Question is: is it a good situation? I feel like the web is a really poor paradigm for many apps. Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. Which is grand for the public but I think really backwards inside organisations.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. There is definitely a danger of "dumbing down" our software too much, but for most purposes I think it is orthogonal to the technology used. I suspect mobile apps have done far more to dumb down software than the evolution of the web in recent years, for example. Part of the problem is that good tools to develop more powerful, flexible software haven't been available on some of these platforms. For example, JavaScript only discovered modular design relatively recently, and even today its community is still fighting early battles like how to manage dependencies and how to build larger projects efficiently. The tools are decades behind the curve compared to how we make desktop, server and embedded software. Another part of the problem is that a lot of the people developing web and mobile apps are relatively unskilled and inexperienced, either having never worked outside that part of the software industry or having moved into it from a less technical role like graphic design or marketing. They don't even realise how far behind the curve their tools are, because they wouldn't recognise or know how to use more powerful tools if they had them. There's also the non-problem that for many purposes, dumbed down software does the job just fine. A great deal of useful, real world work does not require massive business software suites, bought for staggering sums of money from big name suppliers. If there's one thing we've learned from the software success stories of recent years, it's that very often the information you're working with is relatively simple, and the abilities to organise it and to communicate about it with the right people in a convenient way are worth a lot. There's nothing wrong with providing those abilities to new users in a simple way that does not require extensive training; in fact, it's highly desirable to do so.
  - tylerjwilk00 9y ago
    I think the situation we are in with the web proves that the distribution system with the lowest friction and that allows points of friction to be smoothed out in iterations over time will win.
    - pdimitar 9y ago
      But the friction in Web apps is not smoothed out. It only becomes worse. More and more megabytes of JS that nobody knows the purpose of -- or if they do, they are bummed as to why must they be 1.5 MB minified. Also, HTTP 2.0 fell victim to too much pressure for backwards compatibility. Things aren't improving.
- yaseer 9y ago
  I can completely empathise with this, and the distinction between website vs web-app doesn't seem to be clearly defined for most people, outside of software. I often find myself explaining the difference using Google Docs, vs BBC News to illustrate the distinction.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- dyarosla 9y ago
  In reality there are also two kinds of end users. Those who want websites to perform like apps and those that want them to be focused on readability and (mostly text) content only. Website owners/designers/what have you must figure out which of the audiences to appeal to, if not both at once.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. I respectfully disagree. There's a spectrum here, and there's no reason you shouldn't have a site that has some relatively static parts that are purely about providing information and other more interactive parts that work more like an app, if that is what the purpose of the site calls for.
monsieurbanana 9y ago
> For apps we have apps That's the other extreme, which is even worse. I'm happy the web has evolved from simple http/css web pages.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I wouldn't mind going back to the simple web pages of yesteryear, stuff you can write in a simple text editor. Black text on a white background, blue underlined hyperlinks that turn purple when visited, simple formatting that respects your browser's default fonts and pages that degrade gracefully to slow connections and low-resolution devices. HTML is for content, not styling. Even Hacker News feels a little bit too fancy with its threaded discussions and such, but it is by far one of the best sites today, in the Web 2.0 quagmire of needlessly active content and out-of-control styling. This is about as fancy as I want a website to be: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2830673252_16c7bf336e_o.png http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2830673252_16c7bf336e_o.... https://d3ui957tjb5bqd.cloudfront.net/uploads/2016/07/popular-90s-websites-004.jpg https://d3ui957tjb5bqd.cloudfront.net/uploads/2016/07/popula...
  - DamonHD 9y ago
    I have written all most all my Web sites and their pages with vi since the start (for me some time ~1993 commercially and connected to the live non-academic Internet, before that at uni), though I have just now started to play with CSS seriously. Wouldn't want to rush it. (There is some JSP stuff, but most of that is still plain HTML with stuff dropped in strategically.) I like being able to deliver all the useful information content in the initcwnd for the HTML, and have a page weight of generally << 100kB (ignoring ads). http://m.earth.org.uk/ http://m.earth.org.uk/ http://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals.html http://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals.html I honestly don't know if my pages suck for normal humans to use, maybe I should worry more about that...
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      No, they absolutely do not suck. They're beautifully functional basic HTML, straight-forward with no excessive fluff :-)
Freak_NL 9y ago
> For apps we have apps. Also vendor lock-in and a mobile/tablet-only mindset. Fine for some apps, not so great for applications that should be available to all (e.g. a national income tax filing application or a public transport travel planner). A good responsive webapp works on every modern computing device out there. That really is awesome. > The web environment was not made for apps and it shouldnt have apps developed on it. It evolved into it. That doesn't mean that static no-nonsense informative websites should not exist; on the contrary. It means that despite its flaws, we have a modern application execution environment that is cross-platform and constantly updated (if we limit the discussion to Chrome, Edge, and Firefox for now which are kept up-to-date automatically on most operating systems). It's not perfect, but at least it's inclusive.

hellofunk 9y ago

> I tend to agree that all the SPA hype and all the additional levels of abstraction on top of HTML+JS+CSS need to go in favour of lightweight readable dead-simple sites, this is what the web is meant for in the end. For apps we have apps. I kind of disagree. The web is no longer about a single consistent form of content. You have sites. And you have web apps. They are not the same thing. When people ask me what I do for a living, I say, "I write web apps." They often say, "oh, cool, I've been looking for a web designer." I say, "no, I don't really do web design for web sites, I build software applications that run on a web page." So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. But that doesn't mean one should disappear. That's up to designers to understand, not really for users to understand.

scandox 9y ago
This is a true description of the current situation. Question is: is it a good situation? I feel like the web is a really poor paradigm for many apps. Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. Which is grand for the public but I think really backwards inside organisations.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. There is definitely a danger of "dumbing down" our software too much, but for most purposes I think it is orthogonal to the technology used. I suspect mobile apps have done far more to dumb down software than the evolution of the web in recent years, for example. Part of the problem is that good tools to develop more powerful, flexible software haven't been available on some of these platforms. For example, JavaScript only discovered modular design relatively recently, and even today its community is still fighting early battles like how to manage dependencies and how to build larger projects efficiently. The tools are decades behind the curve compared to how we make desktop, server and embedded software. Another part of the problem is that a lot of the people developing web and mobile apps are relatively unskilled and inexperienced, either having never worked outside that part of the software industry or having moved into it from a less technical role like graphic design or marketing. They don't even realise how far behind the curve their tools are, because they wouldn't recognise or know how to use more powerful tools if they had them. There's also the non-problem that for many purposes, dumbed down software does the job just fine. A great deal of useful, real world work does not require massive business software suites, bought for staggering sums of money from big name suppliers. If there's one thing we've learned from the software success stories of recent years, it's that very often the information you're working with is relatively simple, and the abilities to organise it and to communicate about it with the right people in a convenient way are worth a lot. There's nothing wrong with providing those abilities to new users in a simple way that does not require extensive training; in fact, it's highly desirable to do so.
- tylerjwilk00 9y ago
  I think the situation we are in with the web proves that the distribution system with the lowest friction and that allows points of friction to be smoothed out in iterations over time will win.
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    But the friction in Web apps is not smoothed out. It only becomes worse. More and more megabytes of JS that nobody knows the purpose of -- or if they do, they are bummed as to why must they be 1.5 MB minified. Also, HTTP 2.0 fell victim to too much pressure for backwards compatibility. Things aren't improving.
yaseer 9y ago
I can completely empathise with this, and the distinction between website vs web-app doesn't seem to be clearly defined for most people, outside of software. I often find myself explaining the difference using Google Docs, vs BBC News to illustrate the distinction.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dyarosla 9y ago
In reality there are also two kinds of end users. Those who want websites to perform like apps and those that want them to be focused on readability and (mostly text) content only. Website owners/designers/what have you must figure out which of the audiences to appeal to, if not both at once.
Silhouette 9y ago
So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. I respectfully disagree. There's a spectrum here, and there's no reason you shouldn't have a site that has some relatively static parts that are purely about providing information and other more interactive parts that work more like an app, if that is what the purpose of the site calls for.

monsieurbanana 9y ago

> For apps we have apps That's the other extreme, which is even worse. I'm happy the web has evolved from simple http/css web pages.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
I wouldn't mind going back to the simple web pages of yesteryear, stuff you can write in a simple text editor. Black text on a white background, blue underlined hyperlinks that turn purple when visited, simple formatting that respects your browser's default fonts and pages that degrade gracefully to slow connections and low-resolution devices. HTML is for content, not styling. Even Hacker News feels a little bit too fancy with its threaded discussions and such, but it is by far one of the best sites today, in the Web 2.0 quagmire of needlessly active content and out-of-control styling. This is about as fancy as I want a website to be: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2830673252_16c7bf336e_o.png http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2830673252_16c7bf336e_o.... https://d3ui957tjb5bqd.cloudfront.net/uploads/2016/07/popular-90s-websites-004.jpg https://d3ui957tjb5bqd.cloudfront.net/uploads/2016/07/popula...
- DamonHD 9y ago
  I have written all most all my Web sites and their pages with vi since the start (for me some time ~1993 commercially and connected to the live non-academic Internet, before that at uni), though I have just now started to play with CSS seriously. Wouldn't want to rush it. (There is some JSP stuff, but most of that is still plain HTML with stuff dropped in strategically.) I like being able to deliver all the useful information content in the initcwnd for the HTML, and have a page weight of generally << 100kB (ignoring ads). http://m.earth.org.uk/ http://m.earth.org.uk/ http://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals.html http://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals.html I honestly don't know if my pages suck for normal humans to use, maybe I should worry more about that...
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    No, they absolutely do not suck. They're beautifully functional basic HTML, straight-forward with no excessive fluff :-)

Freak_NL 9y ago

> For apps we have apps. Also vendor lock-in and a mobile/tablet-only mindset. Fine for some apps, not so great for applications that should be available to all (e.g. a national income tax filing application or a public transport travel planner). A good responsive webapp works on every modern computing device out there. That really is awesome. > The web environment was not made for apps and it shouldnt have apps developed on it. It evolved into it. That doesn't mean that static no-nonsense informative websites should not exist; on the contrary. It means that despite its flaws, we have a modern application execution environment that is cross-platform and constantly updated (if we limit the discussion to Chrome, Edge, and Firefox for now which are kept up-to-date automatically on most operating systems). It's not perfect, but at least it's inclusive.