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See, I had the same reaction when web apps started gaining traction: "Look at all the native libraries and UI and tools you're giving up, just to solve the app

by Mnoel 16y ago

See, I had the same reaction when web apps started gaining traction: "Look at all the native libraries and UI and tools you're giving up, just to solve the app distribution problem! Solve that, don't take GUIs back 15 years just to fix distribution!" But, there is more to web apps than just distribution. And, there is more to why people want to write for these mobile devices than just the app stores. If you've been doing web stuff for a while, you may be surprised to find some of us prefer the tools, APIs, and patterns behind native app development -- just as I was surprised to learn some people had legitimate reasons to make web apps. Some of us have investments in native code that we can move over to these devices. Some of us think having at least some code in the vendor's pet API provides a better user experience, and makes you better able to track with their platform as it changes. I was wrong to think people only went to the web for distribution. Consider that people may not just be on these native mobile systems for the app stores alone.

andreyf 16y ago
I don't think I made my point really clearly: what I was saying is that the web as a platform needs to take whatever are the best tools, API's, and patterns that exist in webOS/Android/iOS, of course. It's the fragmentation of those well designed platforms that I'm seeing an issue with. Maybe it's best to speak as a hypothetical "developer with an idea" that I'd like to hypothesize to be common: I don't have time to become proficient in developing on webOS/Android/iOS, and I don't want to do a half-assed job by quickly learning a system I'm not familiar with, so I'll pick one (probably iOS, because it provides the biggest reach internationally, and because I have the sense that iOS users are more likely to pay money for apps). I'd prefer to make one quality app, though, and ship it to all app stores, and have it degrade gracefully across devices that have one feature or another. Also, a pony. But seriously: I think Adobe's Flash-to-iOS is a great idea, but I have close to 0 confidence in Adobe being able to maintain it & keep it up to date with changes to the native platform. If Adobe had advocated making iPhone apps by shipping a full-featured Flash-to-HTML5 compiler and vocally advocated pushing HTML standards to reaching feature parity with the iPhone 4, it would be a dream come true.
kenjackson 16y ago
But, there is more to web apps than just distribution. Could you expand on that? I thought it was pretty much all about distribution (deploy to one place and everyone can access it from any machine).

by Mnoel 16y ago

andreyf 16y ago

I don't think I made my point really clearly: what I was saying is that the web as a platform needs to take whatever are the best tools, API's, and patterns that exist in webOS/Android/iOS, of course. It's the fragmentation of those well designed platforms that I'm seeing an issue with. Maybe it's best to speak as a hypothetical "developer with an idea" that I'd like to hypothesize to be common: I don't have time to become proficient in developing on webOS/Android/iOS, and I don't want to do a half-assed job by quickly learning a system I'm not familiar with, so I'll pick one (probably iOS, because it provides the biggest reach internationally, and because I have the sense that iOS users are more likely to pay money for apps). I'd prefer to make one quality app, though, and ship it to all app stores, and have it degrade gracefully across devices that have one feature or another. Also, a pony. But seriously: I think Adobe's Flash-to-iOS is a great idea, but I have close to 0 confidence in Adobe being able to maintain it & keep it up to date with changes to the native platform. If Adobe had advocated making iPhone apps by shipping a full-featured Flash-to-HTML5 compiler and vocally advocated pushing HTML standards to reaching feature parity with the iPhone 4, it would be a dream come true.

kenjackson 16y ago

But, there is more to web apps than just distribution. Could you expand on that? I thought it was pretty much all about distribution (deploy to one place and everyone can access it from any machine).