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I wonder what would happen if all major OS & Browser vendors decided to agreed on a long-term plan to migrate/evolve the HTML, CSS, and JS specs & implementatio

I wonder what would happen if all major OS & Browser vendors decided to agreed on a long-term plan to migrate/evolve the HTML, CSS, and JS specs & implementations towards a functional equivalent variation that could be efficiently implemented with the same semantics and level of security (or better) but with far less CPU and memory inefficiency, removing indirection and dynamic abstraction layer by layer, until suddenly we get something that has all the legitimate benefits of modern web development, but with the same memory/CPU footprint of Cocoa or .NET, being also cross-platform and built into every OS. Wouldn't that be great?

jerf 7y ago
Before that can happen, we'll get WebASM + WebGL interfaces (efficiently) in our browser. I expect an explosion of alternate layout mechanisms to arise from that. They won't be very good at first, but they may end up somewhere neat.
- c-smile 7y ago
  > I expect an explosion of alternate layout mechanisms. No need WebASM for that. Just one CSS property: div { flow: custom [funcname/url(of-layoout-controller)]; } + single function funcname() that will replace children and report min/max intrinsic sizes.
  - Sophistifunk 7y ago
    Wait, is this real? What's it called, so I can google it?
    - SahAssar 7y ago
      I'm guessing he's talking about https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Houdini https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Houdini
- sdegutis 7y ago
  Building on top of WebGL would mean completely custom renderers that have to reimplement everything else too, such as scrolling and context menus and text selection. This has been tried dozens and dozens of times by big players, and never works out.
  - Sophistifunk 7y ago
    What we need to do custom layout in browsers properly without the need to give up all the nice builtins like font rendering and scrolling and a11y, is simply the ability to measure text properly.
jay_kyburz 7y ago
I'd be happy if they just stopped cramming more stuff into HTML CSS and JS and just worked on optimisation from here on in. That way we could let our computers catch up. Lets call it done.

jerf 7y ago

Before that can happen, we'll get WebASM + WebGL interfaces (efficiently) in our browser. I expect an explosion of alternate layout mechanisms to arise from that. They won't be very good at first, but they may end up somewhere neat.

c-smile 7y ago
> I expect an explosion of alternate layout mechanisms. No need WebASM for that. Just one CSS property: div { flow: custom [funcname/url(of-layoout-controller)]; } + single function funcname() that will replace children and report min/max intrinsic sizes.
- Sophistifunk 7y ago
  Wait, is this real? What's it called, so I can google it?
  - SahAssar 7y ago
    I'm guessing he's talking about https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Houdini https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Houdini
sdegutis 7y ago
Building on top of WebGL would mean completely custom renderers that have to reimplement everything else too, such as scrolling and context menus and text selection. This has been tried dozens and dozens of times by big players, and never works out.
- Sophistifunk 7y ago
  What we need to do custom layout in browsers properly without the need to give up all the nice builtins like font rendering and scrolling and a11y, is simply the ability to measure text properly.

jay_kyburz 7y ago

I'd be happy if they just stopped cramming more stuff into HTML CSS and JS and just worked on optimisation from here on in. That way we could let our computers catch up. Lets call it done.