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JavaScript is taking over because that is all they teach now a days at these code bootcamps. Once webassembly gets off the ground javascript will die, but we ne

by sirjaz 8y ago

JavaScript is taking over because that is all they teach now a days at these code bootcamps. Once webassembly gets off the ground javascript will die, but we need to get back to native client software. The web was never meant to handle this.

camwest 8y ago
Hi! I’m the tech lead on AutoCAD web. The engine is C++ which is compiled to Web Assembly, our core team doesn’t actually work in JavaScript day to day. The browsers are doing a really good job making this a possibility today.
- sirjaz 8y ago
  The problem is the reliance on the browser. If we look at the mobile market for one, you could do the same thing, but people still want native apps since they are more responsive, lower memory and cpu usage etc …. With web assembly all you are doing is adding more complexity. Keeping things native is preferred.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    Note that the native AutoCAD doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
    - bitL 8y ago
      For now. I guess management is not doing it for fun but to explore profitability and sustainability of this approach. If it works for them, web version might be the only one that gets distributed. We already saw in Adobe how "cloud" is pushed everywhere even if it makes zero sense from the product point of view (uploading a single RAW file from a top-end camera to cloud takes ages and benefit is nearly zero), but makes super sense from economical standpoint.
      - microcolonel 8y ago
        > If it works for them, web version might be the only one that gets distributed. How could it work for them? Most decent sized projects would promptly run out of available memory and have nothing to do about it. And before that they have to deal with the ever longer list of restrictions put on web applications because of the trust model.
        bitL 8y ago
        I assume they are doing it mainly to avoid distribution costs; they simply push a web-app update via a single, well-standardized channel allowing DRM and trusted remote code injection (to prevent pirates from running it), and they don't need to maintain multiple internal tools to do that with multiple attack vectors. So this IMO might be an experiment in this fashion; they are working closely with Google, probably assuming they can't compete with them so it's best if Google's brightest figure out proper ways, and they can focus on their core business.
  - lghh 8y ago
    I would argue that the web is less complex than native, and by quite a bit. You need a client that runs on Windows, Linux (distributed through multiple package managers), and MacOS. Possibly iOS if you want to support the iPad, and particularly the iPad Pro, in any sort of capacity. And if you want to reliably touch Chrome OS, you're looking at web either way. Not everyone computes the same way they did 10 years ago and we have to start accepting that.
    - crististm 8y ago
      You imply that computing of ten years ago was arguably worse than what we have today. In what way?
      - lghh 8y ago
        If I did, I didn't mean to. Though, using Waze to find the quickest way to work this morning really make my commute much nicer. There was also a new album I'd been meaning to listen to and streaming it on spotify was nice.
- neilsimp1 8y ago
  I think WASM is the saving grace here, really. It would be hard to pull of a performant CAD application in JS alone, but with WASM on the rise I don't see why this couldn't work.
- baybal2 8y ago
  >Hi! I’m the tech lead on AutoCAD web. Hi, what will you do if one nice day Sundarajan Pichai will, for god knows what reason, order web assembly axed out of Chrome and lobby to bury it in W3C?
- crististm 8y ago
  This is a 35-year-old multi-million-line codebase working in a browser. Yup. I don't know what to say - I'm impressed by the amount of effort not spent on other things (for your infinite pick of other things). The future will tell but in the meantime I don't see the problem that was solved by this fix (except for the problem of not running the app in Chrome).
  - sirjaz 8y ago
    The WASM group spec just added this in the official 1.0 spec. Non-web: https://webassembly.org/docs/non-web/ https://webassembly.org/docs/non-web/ So this is how you get around cross-platform issues.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Bytecode as portable binary files go back to the first mainframe generations during the 60's and is still in use by IBM and Unisys systems. Being partially copied by the same companies that are involved on WebAssembly for their own OSes (MSIL/MDIL, DEX, LLVM bitcode). So nothing really new there for getting around cross-platform issues.
api 8y ago
JavaScript is also taking over because it's a way to deliver cross-platform GUIs painlessly. The alternatives are much slower to develop with, not necessarily that much less bloated, and have questionable future support. Not only that but once you develop a native app you must ship a native app. Words cannot describe the pain and suffering that is shipping native code on Windows (installers) or Linux (dependency and distro hell). Mac is better due to uniformity and app bundles but if you want the App Store you have to deal with that bureaucratic nightmare, and you never know if Apple will just arbitrarily destroy your business one day. The web just works. Things that "just work" always win over superior alternatives that have a higher level of friction. Here's a rule of thumb: every installation step roughly halves adoption. So a 5-step setup or deploy process takes the number of initial impressions and reduces adoption to (I/2^5).
- sirjaz 8y ago
  Oddly enough, There are things like Xamarin forms, QT, etc … Look, Xamarin.Forms 3.0 fully supports all platforms. Build once and deploy everywhere: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2018/05/07/build-conference.aspx https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2018/05/07/build-c...
  - api 8y ago
    I tried Xamarin forms. After an hour I could not get a project started. It was painful in the extreme. Visual Studio crashed once during the install. I tried to create a project and got several non-descript errors that looked like vomit from Visual Studio internals. When I encounter such things I toss them in the trash... not because I can't figure them out but because I no longer have any patience for it. If you can't be bothered to make your software installable / on-ramp-able then I can't be bothered to use it. I also see it as indicative of how the whole experience is going to go. If installing a development stack is painful then debugging, shipping, upgrading, etc. are also going to be painful.
    - sirjaz 8y ago
      When was the last time you tried Xamarin.Forms? Visual Studio 2017 doesn't have these issues, and Visual Studio for Mac rocks.
scrollaway 8y ago
> Once webassembly gets off the ground javascript will die I've seen this sentiment floated around and it's delusional. "Once [better tech] gets off the ground, [lesser tech with decades of headstart] will die" has never been true on its own grounds. JS's death will be slow, gradual, and we'll see it coming from two decades away. Just look at Java to see what a popular language on the decline looks like. It's extremely slow, and that's nothing compared to JS.

by sirjaz 8y ago

camwest 8y ago

Hi! I’m the tech lead on AutoCAD web. The engine is C++ which is compiled to Web Assembly, our core team doesn’t actually work in JavaScript day to day. The browsers are doing a really good job making this a possibility today.

sirjaz 8y ago
The problem is the reliance on the browser. If we look at the mobile market for one, you could do the same thing, but people still want native apps since they are more responsive, lower memory and cpu usage etc …. With web assembly all you are doing is adding more complexity. Keeping things native is preferred.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Note that the native AutoCAD doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
  - bitL 8y ago
    For now. I guess management is not doing it for fun but to explore profitability and sustainability of this approach. If it works for them, web version might be the only one that gets distributed. We already saw in Adobe how "cloud" is pushed everywhere even if it makes zero sense from the product point of view (uploading a single RAW file from a top-end camera to cloud takes ages and benefit is nearly zero), but makes super sense from economical standpoint.
    - microcolonel 8y ago
      > If it works for them, web version might be the only one that gets distributed. How could it work for them? Most decent sized projects would promptly run out of available memory and have nothing to do about it. And before that they have to deal with the ever longer list of restrictions put on web applications because of the trust model.
      - bitL 8y ago
        I assume they are doing it mainly to avoid distribution costs; they simply push a web-app update via a single, well-standardized channel allowing DRM and trusted remote code injection (to prevent pirates from running it), and they don't need to maintain multiple internal tools to do that with multiple attack vectors. So this IMO might be an experiment in this fashion; they are working closely with Google, probably assuming they can't compete with them so it's best if Google's brightest figure out proper ways, and they can focus on their core business.
- lghh 8y ago
  I would argue that the web is less complex than native, and by quite a bit. You need a client that runs on Windows, Linux (distributed through multiple package managers), and MacOS. Possibly iOS if you want to support the iPad, and particularly the iPad Pro, in any sort of capacity. And if you want to reliably touch Chrome OS, you're looking at web either way. Not everyone computes the same way they did 10 years ago and we have to start accepting that.
  - crististm 8y ago
    You imply that computing of ten years ago was arguably worse than what we have today. In what way?
    - lghh 8y ago
      If I did, I didn't mean to. Though, using Waze to find the quickest way to work this morning really make my commute much nicer. There was also a new album I'd been meaning to listen to and streaming it on spotify was nice.
neilsimp1 8y ago
I think WASM is the saving grace here, really. It would be hard to pull of a performant CAD application in JS alone, but with WASM on the rise I don't see why this couldn't work.
baybal2 8y ago
>Hi! I’m the tech lead on AutoCAD web. Hi, what will you do if one nice day Sundarajan Pichai will, for god knows what reason, order web assembly axed out of Chrome and lobby to bury it in W3C?
crististm 8y ago
This is a 35-year-old multi-million-line codebase working in a browser. Yup. I don't know what to say - I'm impressed by the amount of effort not spent on other things (for your infinite pick of other things). The future will tell but in the meantime I don't see the problem that was solved by this fix (except for the problem of not running the app in Chrome).
- sirjaz 8y ago
  The WASM group spec just added this in the official 1.0 spec. Non-web: https://webassembly.org/docs/non-web/ https://webassembly.org/docs/non-web/ So this is how you get around cross-platform issues.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Bytecode as portable binary files go back to the first mainframe generations during the 60's and is still in use by IBM and Unisys systems. Being partially copied by the same companies that are involved on WebAssembly for their own OSes (MSIL/MDIL, DEX, LLVM bitcode). So nothing really new there for getting around cross-platform issues.

api 8y ago

JavaScript is also taking over because it's a way to deliver cross-platform GUIs painlessly. The alternatives are much slower to develop with, not necessarily that much less bloated, and have questionable future support. Not only that but once you develop a native app you must ship a native app. Words cannot describe the pain and suffering that is shipping native code on Windows (installers) or Linux (dependency and distro hell). Mac is better due to uniformity and app bundles but if you want the App Store you have to deal with that bureaucratic nightmare, and you never know if Apple will just arbitrarily destroy your business one day. The web just works. Things that "just work" always win over superior alternatives that have a higher level of friction. Here's a rule of thumb: every installation step roughly halves adoption. So a 5-step setup or deploy process takes the number of initial impressions and reduces adoption to (I/2^5).

sirjaz 8y ago
Oddly enough, There are things like Xamarin forms, QT, etc … Look, Xamarin.Forms 3.0 fully supports all platforms. Build once and deploy everywhere: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2018/05/07/build-conference.aspx https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2018/05/07/build-c...
- api 8y ago
  I tried Xamarin forms. After an hour I could not get a project started. It was painful in the extreme. Visual Studio crashed once during the install. I tried to create a project and got several non-descript errors that looked like vomit from Visual Studio internals. When I encounter such things I toss them in the trash... not because I can't figure them out but because I no longer have any patience for it. If you can't be bothered to make your software installable / on-ramp-able then I can't be bothered to use it. I also see it as indicative of how the whole experience is going to go. If installing a development stack is painful then debugging, shipping, upgrading, etc. are also going to be painful.
  - sirjaz 8y ago
    When was the last time you tried Xamarin.Forms? Visual Studio 2017 doesn't have these issues, and Visual Studio for Mac rocks.

scrollaway 8y ago

> Once webassembly gets off the ground javascript will die I've seen this sentiment floated around and it's delusional. "Once [better tech] gets off the ground, [lesser tech with decades of headstart] will die" has never been true on its own grounds. JS's death will be slow, gradual, and we'll see it coming from two decades away. Just look at Java to see what a popular language on the decline looks like. It's extremely slow, and that's nothing compared to JS.