3 ms·

> Maybe a couple of commodity web browsers and engineers working on other more important stuff is better for society? How many implementations of CSS does the w

> Maybe a couple of commodity web browsers and engineers working on other more important stuff is better for society? How many implementations of CSS does the world really need? Shouldn't users have the best possible CSS engine? If there's only one, and it's beholden to the reporting structure at Google, then disruptive innovations are less likely to happen. People who don't work at Google should be allowed to develop the Web platform, without asking Google for permission.

munificent 8y ago
> Shouldn't users have the best possible CSS engine? Shouldn't they have the best possible COBOL compiler? The best possible VRML renderer? The best possible ICQ client? Obviously CSS is way less dead than those, but there is always an opportunity cost. It's not a valid engineering argument to say "we should spend resources on X" without considering what else those resources could be spent on. My initial comment is really just observing that maybe Microsoft's move actually does imply that they believe, no, the world doesn't need another CSS engine. I don't know if that's true or not, but I think it's interesting to ask the question. We sort of a tacitly assume that the web will grow and grow forever and ever. But maybe that's just because we've only seen the first half of its life cycle. Maybe it is reaching a plateau and becoming a commodity. There are good questions about whether that's true and, if so, whether that's a good thing. But I don't think it's illuminating to just assume the best way to improve the world is to have as many browser implementations as possible. Like an entire Dyson sphere populated solely by engineers each writing their own HTML parser. > then disruptive innovations are less likely to happen. Maybe the disruptive innovation has happened and the disruption was to move off the web. The Internet and HTTP is doing great. What mobile app isn't on the Internet? Maybe HTML+CSS+JS is no longer the optimal user interface language for it. > People who don't work at Google should be allowed to develop the Web platform, without asking Google for permission. I guess I don't see what you're getting at. Browsers don't write themselves, so if you don't want to ask one of a couple of giant rich corporations to do something, that means you better have deep pockets yourself. Even if Microsoft kept their web engine, how does that help? Now instead of asking Google, Mozilla, and WebKit for permission, you have to ask Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and WebKit for permission and then get them to all agree on it.

munificent 8y ago

> Shouldn't users have the best possible CSS engine? Shouldn't they have the best possible COBOL compiler? The best possible VRML renderer? The best possible ICQ client? Obviously CSS is way less dead than those, but there is always an opportunity cost. It's not a valid engineering argument to say "we should spend resources on X" without considering what else those resources could be spent on. My initial comment is really just observing that maybe Microsoft's move actually does imply that they believe, no, the world doesn't need another CSS engine. I don't know if that's true or not, but I think it's interesting to ask the question. We sort of a tacitly assume that the web will grow and grow forever and ever. But maybe that's just because we've only seen the first half of its life cycle. Maybe it is reaching a plateau and becoming a commodity. There are good questions about whether that's true and, if so, whether that's a good thing. But I don't think it's illuminating to just assume the best way to improve the world is to have as many browser implementations as possible. Like an entire Dyson sphere populated solely by engineers each writing their own HTML parser. > then disruptive innovations are less likely to happen. Maybe the disruptive innovation has happened and the disruption was to move off the web. The Internet and HTTP is doing great. What mobile app isn't on the Internet? Maybe HTML+CSS+JS is no longer the optimal user interface language for it. > People who don't work at Google should be allowed to develop the Web platform, without asking Google for permission. I guess I don't see what you're getting at. Browsers don't write themselves, so if you don't want to ask one of a couple of giant rich corporations to do something, that means you better have deep pockets yourself. Even if Microsoft kept their web engine, how does that help? Now instead of asking Google, Mozilla, and WebKit for permission, you have to ask Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and WebKit for permission and then get them to all agree on it.