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Yes, clearly the web was better when half the sites were broken because you didn't have the latest version of Flash/Shockwave/Java and the entire website just s

by pluma 9y ago

Yes, clearly the web was better when half the sites were broken because you didn't have the latest version of Flash/Shockwave/Java and the entire website just showed a sad rectangle. There's nostalgia and then there's outright denial. The reason you think the web was glorious in 2006 is that you forgot everything that was shit about it. Want to know what made those shitty parts go away? Modern JavaScript.

blub 9y ago
Java was irrelevant by then, shockwave was not really used for websites, that would be Flash, which was already installed on most clients and was working fine. Flash was not shitty, it was quite good for writing apps, but it was proprietary and like a lot of contemporary tech it was (becoming) a security liability. You're giving waaay too much credit to JS. Apple almost single-handedly buried Flash.
ryanbrunner 9y ago
2006 is maybe not the correct year, but I'd say the was a period around JQuery's heyday that had a lot of advantages compared to today. JavaScript, while used frequently, was mostly for progressive enhancement, CSS was beggining to be a saner language to work with (particularly with sass), and overall, I generally felt more productive than I do today in the JS-driven world of the web. Absolutely there's a class of applications that wouldn't be possible with this approach, and I'm glad they exist. But it seems the "correct" answer to any problem to be solved on the web, no matter how straightforward, is to reach for React or a similar framework.
zeveb 9y ago
Modern JavaScript is just as bad as Flash, Shockwave & Java; indeed, it's worse: those plugins could be enabled or disabled within particular pages and everything else would continue to work just fine, but modern SPAs are utterly unusable without JavaScript. Modern web sites use JavaScript to insert text & images into the DOM; it's impossible to usefully view the web without a full-fledged JavaScript implementation. It's impossible to read a blog without exposing yourself to security & privacy risks due to JavaScript. It used to be possible to escape; now it no longer is. > Want to know what made those shitty parts go away? > Modern JavaScript. Modern JavaScript didn't make the shitty parts go away; modern JavaScript made the shitty parts universal.

by pluma 9y ago

blub 9y ago

Java was irrelevant by then, shockwave was not really used for websites, that would be Flash, which was already installed on most clients and was working fine. Flash was not shitty, it was quite good for writing apps, but it was proprietary and like a lot of contemporary tech it was (becoming) a security liability. You're giving waaay too much credit to JS. Apple almost single-handedly buried Flash.

ryanbrunner 9y ago

2006 is maybe not the correct year, but I'd say the was a period around JQuery's heyday that had a lot of advantages compared to today. JavaScript, while used frequently, was mostly for progressive enhancement, CSS was beggining to be a saner language to work with (particularly with sass), and overall, I generally felt more productive than I do today in the JS-driven world of the web. Absolutely there's a class of applications that wouldn't be possible with this approach, and I'm glad they exist. But it seems the "correct" answer to any problem to be solved on the web, no matter how straightforward, is to reach for React or a similar framework.

zeveb 9y ago

Modern JavaScript is just as bad as Flash, Shockwave & Java; indeed, it's worse: those plugins could be enabled or disabled within particular pages and everything else would continue to work just fine, but modern SPAs are utterly unusable without JavaScript. Modern web sites use JavaScript to insert text & images into the DOM; it's impossible to usefully view the web without a full-fledged JavaScript implementation. It's impossible to read a blog without exposing yourself to security & privacy risks due to JavaScript. It used to be possible to escape; now it no longer is. > Want to know what made those shitty parts go away? > Modern JavaScript. Modern JavaScript didn't make the shitty parts go away; modern JavaScript made the shitty parts universal.