6 ms·

I'm inclined to disagree, but I guess the real problem is that webpages on the internet are being forced to serve both purposes. Paradigm 1 - interconnected, h

by bo1024 7y ago

I'm inclined to disagree, but I guess the real problem is that webpages on the internet are being forced to serve both purposes. Paradigm 1 - interconnected, hyperlinked web of text-and-content-based documents: open, accessible, amenable to indexing and tooling and so forth. Paradigm 2 - delivery vehicle for cross-platform, full-featured, somewhat-security-sandboxed, applications. I agree with the article that it's sad if Paradigm 1 is trampled to make way for Paradigm 2, just because (as you point out) we haven't been able to develop a viable alternative. In theory these could coexist, but the point of the article is people are being trained in Paradigm 2 and try to use it for purposes that are much more suited for Paradigm 1. Just as sad, Paradigm 1 is more oriented around decentralization, giving power, options, and information to the user; Paradigm 2 is often exploited for lock-in, control over user's decisions, collecting information about the user, etc.

rthomas6 7y ago
Don't we kind of have Paradigm 2 on our smartphones and tablets? It's not perfect but it's something.
- EGreg 7y ago
  We should replace DNS with DHT, then we can have content addressable (or otherwise verified) apps sideloaded or loaded in chunks from anywhere like in BitTorrent or Dat. To me, the Browser is the most widely distributed sandbox runtime ever! It’s just missing a few crucial things we plan to add soon :-)
  - JBiserkov 7y ago
    Have you seen https://github.com/staltz/dat-installer https://github.com/staltz/dat-installer ? It can be used to update itself, too :-)
- bo1024 7y ago
  I agree it's better in some ways than the desktop programs ("apps") situation
dccoolgai 7y ago
I think what the author is saying is that paradigm 2 is built _on top of_ paradigm 1 and if you can't do #1 right, then by definition _neither_ can be right. It's astounding the number of interview candidates who are super-fluent in JS but can't tell you to save their lives why it's a bad idea to put a click handler on a div. React will die (It's already started to) and we'll migrate back to the actual Web at some point and for my money it can't happen fast enough.
- frenchyatwork 7y ago
  > React will die Hopefully, but people have a large capacity to deal with broken web software. Back when I was young, it was all the Java & .Net websites that turned every friggin link into a POST form so that navigating back, and opening in a new window was completely broken.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  > It's astounding the number of interview candidates who are super-fluent in JS but can't tell you to save their lives why it's a bad idea to put a click handler on a div. Go on?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Because you've literally just described what a <button> is.
    - felxh 7y ago
      That would mean that anything that responds to click events is a button. From your experience of using UIs, you can probably think of many more UI elements that respond to clicks and are not buttons
  - snek 7y ago
    Putting a click element on a div is transparent to accessibility systems. And no, it isn't possible to consider an element with an onclick the same as a button, because events bubble, which means the element with the event listener isn't necessarily the element being watched for a click. IIRC there even used to be a "good practice" where people would attach a single click handler at the root and use it to dispatch events based on the `event.target` instead of attaching a separate handler to each target.
wildduck 7y ago
Paradigm 1's security/privacy (WebRTC and webttorrent ip leaking, canvas finger printing) are being compromised in sake of striving for fancy stuff in Paradigm 2. Browser vendors (Firefox, Chrome, Brave) please get your act together to prevent https://nothingprivate.ml https://nothingprivate.ml
- MadWombat 7y ago
  For what its worth, I just tried this on Firefox 67.0.4 and it didn't work. It couldn't find the name I typed after I loaded from a private window.
  - jamesmp98 7y ago
    It didn't work for my friend when done via Chrome on Android, and when I tried it, i got someone else's name in incognito
_jwilde 7y ago
I feel like this gives an overly rosy picture of the past— The need to serve Paradigm 2 existed all over the place in the plain html days. It’s just instead of having standards-based languages for Paradigm 2, we used to embed janky Flash SWFs and Java applets, were dependent on single vendors to patch zero-days in closed source code, and had to pay hundreds of dollars for licenses for developer tools. Today’s Paradigm 2 now has multiple competing implementations, open standards, and powerful DOM inspectors in almost every web browser to tear apart any modern Paradigm 2 app you come across. I think today’s Paradigm 2 gives more power to users than the Paradigm 2 of the past :)
- krisrm 7y ago
  Absolutely agree with this. The Internet-as-appplication-platform has never been better, from a developer's perspective. From a user's perspective, it's maybe a bit more nuanced... I'm tired of websites trying to get around my adblocker, and everyone attempting to enable desktop notifications, for example. If I'm trying to read someone's document they've published, I'd like it to just be a document, thanks. But, increasingly, "Paradigm 2" webapps like Spotify and Google docs are as good or better than "rich" desktop apps.
  - tracker1 7y ago
    The "notifications" request REALLY pisses me off to no end. A simple "Subscribe" button (if the notifications API is present) would be enough to trigger the request. I wish I could just turn it off all around in the browser... Looking now... Nope, at least in chrome, cannot just disable the feature. Also agreed, many web apps these days are as good or better than desktop. I actually have worked and am working on applications that replace their desktop counterparts. They're practically easier to scale, tend to have tooling to handle window sizes better, customization is easier and imho just nicer to write against. Better still if you don't have to support legacy browsers. Most browsers today are supporting modules and async import. Still using Webpack and Babel for JSX, but really close to a point where I'd just assume write for esm and have a server-side translation for JSX on demand (cached).
- bo1024 7y ago

by bo1024 7y ago

rthomas6 7y ago

Don't we kind of have Paradigm 2 on our smartphones and tablets? It's not perfect but it's something.

EGreg 7y ago
We should replace DNS with DHT, then we can have content addressable (or otherwise verified) apps sideloaded or loaded in chunks from anywhere like in BitTorrent or Dat. To me, the Browser is the most widely distributed sandbox runtime ever! It’s just missing a few crucial things we plan to add soon :-)
- JBiserkov 7y ago
  Have you seen https://github.com/staltz/dat-installer https://github.com/staltz/dat-installer ? It can be used to update itself, too :-)
bo1024 7y ago
I agree it's better in some ways than the desktop programs ("apps") situation

dccoolgai 7y ago

I think what the author is saying is that paradigm 2 is built _on top of_ paradigm 1 and if you can't do #1 right, then by definition _neither_ can be right. It's astounding the number of interview candidates who are super-fluent in JS but can't tell you to save their lives why it's a bad idea to put a click handler on a div. React will die (It's already started to) and we'll migrate back to the actual Web at some point and for my money it can't happen fast enough.

frenchyatwork 7y ago
> React will die Hopefully, but people have a large capacity to deal with broken web software. Back when I was young, it was all the Java & .Net websites that turned every friggin link into a POST form so that navigating back, and opening in a new window was completely broken.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
> It's astounding the number of interview candidates who are super-fluent in JS but can't tell you to save their lives why it's a bad idea to put a click handler on a div. Go on?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Because you've literally just described what a <button> is.
  - felxh 7y ago
    That would mean that anything that responds to click events is a button. From your experience of using UIs, you can probably think of many more UI elements that respond to clicks and are not buttons
- snek 7y ago
  Putting a click element on a div is transparent to accessibility systems. And no, it isn't possible to consider an element with an onclick the same as a button, because events bubble, which means the element with the event listener isn't necessarily the element being watched for a click. IIRC there even used to be a "good practice" where people would attach a single click handler at the root and use it to dispatch events based on the `event.target` instead of attaching a separate handler to each target.

wildduck 7y ago

Paradigm 1's security/privacy (WebRTC and webttorrent ip leaking, canvas finger printing) are being compromised in sake of striving for fancy stuff in Paradigm 2. Browser vendors (Firefox, Chrome, Brave) please get your act together to prevent https://nothingprivate.ml https://nothingprivate.ml

MadWombat 7y ago
For what its worth, I just tried this on Firefox 67.0.4 and it didn't work. It couldn't find the name I typed after I loaded from a private window.
- jamesmp98 7y ago
  It didn't work for my friend when done via Chrome on Android, and when I tried it, i got someone else's name in incognito

_jwilde 7y ago

I feel like this gives an overly rosy picture of the past— The need to serve Paradigm 2 existed all over the place in the plain html days. It’s just instead of having standards-based languages for Paradigm 2, we used to embed janky Flash SWFs and Java applets, were dependent on single vendors to patch zero-days in closed source code, and had to pay hundreds of dollars for licenses for developer tools. Today’s Paradigm 2 now has multiple competing implementations, open standards, and powerful DOM inspectors in almost every web browser to tear apart any modern Paradigm 2 app you come across. I think today’s Paradigm 2 gives more power to users than the Paradigm 2 of the past :)

krisrm 7y ago
Absolutely agree with this. The Internet-as-appplication-platform has never been better, from a developer's perspective. From a user's perspective, it's maybe a bit more nuanced... I'm tired of websites trying to get around my adblocker, and everyone attempting to enable desktop notifications, for example. If I'm trying to read someone's document they've published, I'd like it to just be a document, thanks. But, increasingly, "Paradigm 2" webapps like Spotify and Google docs are as good or better than "rich" desktop apps.
- tracker1 7y ago
  The "notifications" request REALLY pisses me off to no end. A simple "Subscribe" button (if the notifications API is present) would be enough to trigger the request. I wish I could just turn it off all around in the browser... Looking now... Nope, at least in chrome, cannot just disable the feature. Also agreed, many web apps these days are as good or better than desktop. I actually have worked and am working on applications that replace their desktop counterparts. They're practically easier to scale, tend to have tooling to handle window sizes better, customization is easier and imho just nicer to write against. Better still if you don't have to support legacy browsers. Most browsers today are supporting modules and async import. Still using Webpack and Babel for JSX, but really close to a point where I'd just assume write for esm and have a server-side translation for JSX on demand (cached).
bo1024 7y ago