5 ms·

I think it's impossible. We lost. The incentives aren't there for interoperability and support for client-side customization to meaningfully improve - big names

by Pete_D 7y ago

I think it's impossible. We lost. The incentives aren't there for interoperability and support for client-side customization to meaningfully improve - big names will resist, either because it makes it easier for users to sidestep ads and tracking, or because the kinds of features it would require aren't within reach of the minimum viable user (https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyranny_of_the_minimum_viable_user/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...). Legally-enforced open APIs and client-agnosticity like you mention downthread sounds wonderful (maybe we could start by deprecating the User-Agent header) but for similar reasons, I can't see it ever taking off. Pessimism notwithstanding, here's an idea: imagine a browser extension where you could implement privileged pages/tabs that had access to other tabs' script environments/DOM, and could inject elements from other pages into itself. So you could write a workflow like: 1. open a Wikipedia page in a background tab (`const wiki = new Tab(etc...);`) 2. run some JS to pick out values from a <table> in it 3. open a Google Docs spreadsheet in a background tab 4. fill out the spreadsheet using the previously obtained data 5. as a bonus, inject the table + spreadsheet elements into the extension page for side-by-side reference Not sure what the emacs analogy would be - maybe something like org-mode and Babel being able to generate things using the contents of other buffers.

spurgu 7y ago
Puppeteer?
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> The incentives aren't there for interoperability and support for client-side customization to meaningfully improve - big names will resist, either because it makes it easier for users to sidestep ads and tracking, or because the kinds of features it would require aren't within reach of the minimum viable user Yup. Also, because of security - that, I imagine, will be the argument legitimizing the whole thing. I'm acutely aware how interoperability conflicts with security. Every security compromise you make to make the software be more useful is something that can be a way for users to self-pwn when subjected to social engineering attacks. My Emacs is a monster of productivity, but then again it's so niche that nobody is writing elisp malware. > Not sure what the emacs analogy would be - maybe something like org-mode and Babel being able to generate things using the contents of other buffers. Your example is actually something one would do in Emacs - (1) open a buffer with some data in the background, (2) copy the interesting parts, (3) paste it into a new buffer in some specific major mode that helps you (4) restructure the data, and (5) show the work; all in a single step you could bind to a key or button. Different example of Emacs-style integration I'd like to do: run all my IMs in the browser (FB Messenger, Slack, Skype, Telegram) as background tabs, and have a resident piece of code that reacts to new messages in each and aggregates them, displaying a foreground tab with "event stream" ordered by time (and possibly a "reply" button). Kind of like IRC channel unifying all your browser IMs, with ability for you to add new ones without having to deal with OAuth and API calls to IM servers. Elsewhere in the thread[0], 'zapzupnz says that "data can be available online without necessarily being web first. Heck, most things are — data provided to mobile apps and desktop clients via services that might have a web frontend.". Well, so how come I can't easily do automated queries to my bank to fetch my balance, put it in whatever accounting app I want to use, and display it on my personal dashboard for extra fun? The only way I can do this today is through scripting around bank's authentication and scrapping their page - which risks termination of account for ToS violations. This is less about the browsers and more about API control and problematic ToS - but it would be mighty easier to do if I could easily shuttle arbitrary data between browser tabs myself. BTW. this thread made me realize that I'm not very clear on what a browser extension can or can't do; maybe the situation is slightly better than I think. Need to check it out. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19680964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19680964

by Pete_D 7y ago

spurgu 7y ago

Puppeteer?

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> The incentives aren't there for interoperability and support for client-side customization to meaningfully improve - big names will resist, either because it makes it easier for users to sidestep ads and tracking, or because the kinds of features it would require aren't within reach of the minimum viable user Yup. Also, because of security - that, I imagine, will be the argument legitimizing the whole thing. I'm acutely aware how interoperability conflicts with security. Every security compromise you make to make the software be more useful is something that can be a way for users to self-pwn when subjected to social engineering attacks. My Emacs is a monster of productivity, but then again it's so niche that nobody is writing elisp malware. > Not sure what the emacs analogy would be - maybe something like org-mode and Babel being able to generate things using the contents of other buffers. Your example is actually something one would do in Emacs - (1) open a buffer with some data in the background, (2) copy the interesting parts, (3) paste it into a new buffer in some specific major mode that helps you (4) restructure the data, and (5) show the work; all in a single step you could bind to a key or button. Different example of Emacs-style integration I'd like to do: run all my IMs in the browser (FB Messenger, Slack, Skype, Telegram) as background tabs, and have a resident piece of code that reacts to new messages in each and aggregates them, displaying a foreground tab with "event stream" ordered by time (and possibly a "reply" button). Kind of like IRC channel unifying all your browser IMs, with ability for you to add new ones without having to deal with OAuth and API calls to IM servers. Elsewhere in the thread[0], 'zapzupnz says that "data can be available online without necessarily being web first. Heck, most things are — data provided to mobile apps and desktop clients via services that might have a web frontend.". Well, so how come I can't easily do automated queries to my bank to fetch my balance, put it in whatever accounting app I want to use, and display it on my personal dashboard for extra fun? The only way I can do this today is through scripting around bank's authentication and scrapping their page - which risks termination of account for ToS violations. This is less about the browsers and more about API control and problematic ToS - but it would be mighty easier to do if I could easily shuttle arbitrary data between browser tabs myself. BTW. this thread made me realize that I'm not very clear on what a browser extension can or can't do; maybe the situation is slightly better than I think. Need to check it out. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19680964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19680964