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> Not everyone cares about cross-platform, some developers rather specialize in a given platform. Yeah. This is exactly what people thought in the early 2000s

> Not everyone cares about cross-platform, some developers rather specialize in a given platform. Yeah. This is exactly what people thought in the early 2000s of IE6. It was the de facto 'standard' web browser. Whole enterprises were built on the assumption that no other browser matters. But the world around changed. IE6 became obsolete. Then insecure. People kept running it to use the old apps that would not work on modern browsers. But eventually, IE6 had to be buried. Thousands of apps containing billions of lines of code had to be re-written at an astronomical cost. Just because, for a short while, we once thought specializing on one platform was a sustainable long-term strategy.

pjmlp 8y ago
Which is why those devs now specialize in Chrome instead.
- Yoric 8y ago
  Sad but largely true. On the other hand, it is easier to install Chrome on your machine, if you need a Chrome-locked webapp, than to install macOS on the same machine. In fact, the only platform on which you cannot install a Chromium-based Chrome is iOS, and that's a political choice by Apple. edit Rephrased entirely.
  - dwaite 8y ago
    Blocking all third party code (and most first party code) from creating executable pages is a pretty strong security decision, but yes it has political ramifications.
ksk 8y ago
You are claiming a false dichotomy. Specialization doesn't mean future-deprecation. Every single cross-platform app is written to an abstraction. There is no implicit assumption that all abstractions are good. Whenever I hear cross-platform code I think slow bloated web-apps or slow bloated java apps with a funky UI. Websites written for IE6 can still be used today with minor changes. The problem is activex and other crappy plugin technologies. If people had just targeted Win32, those apps would still be working today - but probably still end up requiring a rewrite because of modern security requirements.

pjmlp 8y ago

Which is why those devs now specialize in Chrome instead.

Yoric 8y ago
Sad but largely true. On the other hand, it is easier to install Chrome on your machine, if you need a Chrome-locked webapp, than to install macOS on the same machine. In fact, the only platform on which you cannot install a Chromium-based Chrome is iOS, and that's a political choice by Apple. edit Rephrased entirely.
- dwaite 8y ago
  Blocking all third party code (and most first party code) from creating executable pages is a pretty strong security decision, but yes it has political ramifications.

ksk 8y ago

You are claiming a false dichotomy. Specialization doesn't mean future-deprecation. Every single cross-platform app is written to an abstraction. There is no implicit assumption that all abstractions are good. Whenever I hear cross-platform code I think slow bloated web-apps or slow bloated java apps with a funky UI. Websites written for IE6 can still be used today with minor changes. The problem is activex and other crappy plugin technologies. If people had just targeted Win32, those apps would still be working today - but probably still end up requiring a rewrite because of modern security requirements.