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Starting with a document engine and bolting-on a language hasn't worked so well. Doing security through language-machines (Java Applets / Flash / JavaScript) h

Starting with a document engine and bolting-on a language hasn't worked so well. Doing security through language-machines (Java Applets / Flash / JavaScript) hasn't worked so well either. Spec-ex has pushed this from bad to worse. If the idea is to run untrusted foreign code on our machines, I think some kind of emulator wrapped inside of a full-blown VM--with a super-easy interface for connecting/disconnecting peripherals, and a chrome-debugger-simple way to snoop and/or filter network traffic--would be a dramatic improvement over what's currently out there. Totally academic discussion though. We know how to do better. Google and Apple dictate what we actually do. Facebook made a fairly successful end-run around them with React Native. The situation is obviously f'ed when Facebook is the underdog.

krapp 8y ago
>Starting with a document engine and bolting-on a language hasn't worked so well. Even given the flaws of javascript as a language and the ugliness and perils of the web app model, it's still easily the most successful and widely used application platform ever. It's a stretch to say it hasn't worked very, very well, despite itself. And it wasn't really "bolted on." The script tag was introduced in HTML 4, it, and the use of scripting in web pages, is as valid an element as everything else. People can reasonably disagree about the utility of javascript in the web, especially since it goes way beyond simply being a way to add simple interactivity to the DOM, but running applications on the web is not a violation of the web's intent, it is a part of the web's intent. >I think some kind of emulator wrapped inside of a full-blown VM (...) If we don't screw it up, I hope this is where webassembly will lead us in a few years.
- jstewartmobile 8y ago
  Arguing worse-is-better for something like Unix is fair enough. Arguing it for things like the IBM PC, or Web 2.0--massive steps backward, taken purely due to the circumstances of whichever corporate overlord happened to dominate at the time--is denial. The web won not because it was efficient, or well designed, or worse-is-better, or even sane. The web won because it was the closest thing we had in computing to a detente. If we could write a native app without having to worry about getting squished by Apple or Google or Microsoft as soon as we start to make waves, we'd have left HTTP/HTML as the same old docs protocol/format TBL cooked-up.

krapp 8y ago

>Starting with a document engine and bolting-on a language hasn't worked so well. Even given the flaws of javascript as a language and the ugliness and perils of the web app model, it's still easily the most successful and widely used application platform ever. It's a stretch to say it hasn't worked very, very well, despite itself. And it wasn't really "bolted on." The script tag was introduced in HTML 4, it, and the use of scripting in web pages, is as valid an element as everything else. People can reasonably disagree about the utility of javascript in the web, especially since it goes way beyond simply being a way to add simple interactivity to the DOM, but running applications on the web is not a violation of the web's intent, it is a part of the web's intent. >I think some kind of emulator wrapped inside of a full-blown VM (...) If we don't screw it up, I hope this is where webassembly will lead us in a few years.

jstewartmobile 8y ago
Arguing worse-is-better for something like Unix is fair enough. Arguing it for things like the IBM PC, or Web 2.0--massive steps backward, taken purely due to the circumstances of whichever corporate overlord happened to dominate at the time--is denial. The web won not because it was efficient, or well designed, or worse-is-better, or even sane. The web won because it was the closest thing we had in computing to a detente. If we could write a native app without having to worry about getting squished by Apple or Google or Microsoft as soon as we start to make waves, we'd have left HTTP/HTML as the same old docs protocol/format TBL cooked-up.