4 ms·

What.... why? Why must we insist upon piling so many features on top of browsers? It's a web browser, not an application platform...

by tomc1985 8y ago

devwastaken 8y ago
Browsers are application platforms and have been for a while. It is the most portable and accessible method of software, if the features you need fit within its sandbox.
pcwalton 8y ago
It doesn't add any features to the browser. It's just a Web Assembly application.
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
Because it is. Maybe not the platform we would've designed, but it's one we have.
lykr0n 8y ago
Welcome to the world of the Browser Application platfRrm fun. I call it B.A.R.F
EpicEng 8y ago
>It's a web browser, not an application platform... I'm assuming you have just arrived from 1996. I can't wait until you find out who our President is!
- smacktoward 8y ago
  "Oh God, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger, isn't it?"
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
bryanlarsen 8y ago
It's not included in the browser, it's just a web page.
Yoric 8y ago
This is not a new feature. It's a wasm library/app that you can use to code for your browser in Python. So, it's actually pretty cool. Also, the web browser has been an application platform for nearly 20 years now, so I'm not sure I understand your remark.
samlevine 8y ago
You're using a web app now. Is this bad for the long term preservation of knowledge? Sure. But it's the world we made.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- schwartzworld 8y ago
  How are webapps worse for the preservation if knowledge than native apps? I can't open most of the apps I used on a daily basis 10 years ago.
  - samlevine 8y ago
    For reasonably complex documents PDF/A is a pretty good choice for long-term archival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A That said, the comparison I was trying to make was the pre webapp web to the current web. We have AOL today, just not one big company running it. It will mostly be lost because it's not legal to save it. The future will know us through scraped videos from Youtube before it was taken down suddenly and without warning in the mid 21st century due to corporate politics and/or the takeover of the government in DC by descendants of the house of Habsburg.
roywiggins 8y ago
I hate to break it to you, but the best interface for scientific python is Jupyter Notebook, which already runs in the browser. This just moves the execution of the code into the browser also. It's also not adding any features that weren't already there, unless you're objecting to the entire WebAssembly project, in which case I guess that's allowed, but a bit off-topic.

What.... why? Why must we insist upon piling so many features on top of browsers? It's a web browser, not an application platform...

devwastaken 8y ago

Browsers are application platforms and have been for a while. It is the most portable and accessible method of software, if the features you need fit within its sandbox.

pcwalton 8y ago

It doesn't add any features to the browser. It's just a Web Assembly application.

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago

Because it is. Maybe not the platform we would've designed, but it's one we have.

lykr0n 8y ago

Welcome to the world of the Browser Application platfRrm fun. I call it B.A.R.F

EpicEng 8y ago

>It's a web browser, not an application platform... I'm assuming you have just arrived from 1996. I can't wait until you find out who our President is!

smacktoward 8y ago
"Oh God, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger, isn't it?"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

bryanlarsen 8y ago

It's not included in the browser, it's just a web page.

Yoric 8y ago

This is not a new feature. It's a wasm library/app that you can use to code for your browser in Python. So, it's actually pretty cool. Also, the web browser has been an application platform for nearly 20 years now, so I'm not sure I understand your remark.

samlevine 8y ago

You're using a web app now. Is this bad for the long term preservation of knowledge? Sure. But it's the world we made.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
schwartzworld 8y ago
How are webapps worse for the preservation if knowledge than native apps? I can't open most of the apps I used on a daily basis 10 years ago.
- samlevine 8y ago
  For reasonably complex documents PDF/A is a pretty good choice for long-term archival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A That said, the comparison I was trying to make was the pre webapp web to the current web. We have AOL today, just not one big company running it. It will mostly be lost because it's not legal to save it. The future will know us through scraped videos from Youtube before it was taken down suddenly and without warning in the mid 21st century due to corporate politics and/or the takeover of the government in DC by descendants of the house of Habsburg.

roywiggins 8y ago

I hate to break it to you, but the best interface for scientific python is Jupyter Notebook, which already runs in the browser. This just moves the execution of the code into the browser also. It's also not adding any features that weren't already there, unless you're objecting to the entire WebAssembly project, in which case I guess that's allowed, but a bit off-topic.