4 ms·

From what I can tell VCL was simply the "pioneer" of what afterwards became "the bog standard approach" from VB to WinForms, Qt, Gtk etcpp. Essentially an OOP c

From what I can tell VCL was simply the "pioneer" of what afterwards became "the bog standard approach" from VB to WinForms, Qt, Gtk etcpp. Essentially an OOP class hierarchy with everything inheriting a root "Component" class, most of them wrapping win32 / OS "prim components" C API, coupled with a visual editor with a layouter / component placement / Properties pane. Now, stuff like this abounds in the Web space but will never feel as "lean" because there's no comparable "underlying-OS-provided-component-primitives". If you insist on such a route without "downloading half the internet", you're stuck with HTML's Form primitives --- not rich enough. If you avoid "28 properties to connect/style", 90+% of web-savvy adopters are gonna balk and bark "where's all the well-known CSS props I should be free to apply?". If you ditch shared stylesheets and expose CSS through a per-component Properties Pane --- in a naive tool, consider the generated HTML, not a sane idea. Look, these "big UI frameworks" for the most part strip down during builds (with modern web-dev tooling) to the only-what's-used essentials --- certainly for the JS parts, hopefully for the CSS parts too (though not sure this has ever been a real problem to begin with tbqh)

mmjaa 9y ago
Its never going to work like that for the web, because web browser/client producers aren't interested in parcelling out pieces of the pie - its an all-or-nothing approach in the client wars, and we, 2nd-tier programmers hoping to profit on top of the platform, simply have no control. So, its kind of cannibalistic in my opinion - as soon as an approach rises to the level of adoption, it becomes cannibalised by the very providers of the resources required to sustain itself - the web client vendors. I, also, look for the same things you do. I don't think its going to happen with the web - we're lock-stepped into fooling ourselves that 'one standard will fit all' when really its 'one standard will deplete your budget, and then you will be left to fund the other standards if you want to ship - otherwise, gtfo and die'... The only hope is that a model of software development emerges that is not dependent on the client software wars producing a clear winner. Perhaps the more people build their own custom clients, the more we're likely to gain the "component-izable ideal" you postulate. One can hope ..

mmjaa 9y ago

Its never going to work like that for the web, because web browser/client producers aren't interested in parcelling out pieces of the pie - its an all-or-nothing approach in the client wars, and we, 2nd-tier programmers hoping to profit on top of the platform, simply have no control. So, its kind of cannibalistic in my opinion - as soon as an approach rises to the level of adoption, it becomes cannibalised by the very providers of the resources required to sustain itself - the web client vendors. I, also, look for the same things you do. I don't think its going to happen with the web - we're lock-stepped into fooling ourselves that 'one standard will fit all' when really its 'one standard will deplete your budget, and then you will be left to fund the other standards if you want to ship - otherwise, gtfo and die'... The only hope is that a model of software development emerges that is not dependent on the client software wars producing a clear winner. Perhaps the more people build their own custom clients, the more we're likely to gain the "component-izable ideal" you postulate. One can hope ..