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Wow, this is really cool. I wonder if in the future, everything will run on the browser, and most software doesn't care about the OS at all. There's even a xkc

Wow, this is really cool. I wonder if in the future, everything will run on the browser, and most software doesn't care about the OS at all. There's even a xkcd comic about this[0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/934/ https://xkcd.com/934/

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
Technically it can, but money from Appstore, Playstore, Windows Store is too lucrative for the behemoths to give up their hold on them to improve the browser ecosystem & web apps in general.
- rhlsthrm 6y ago
  Is there a way to reconcile this? Web has such nice tooling to develop for, but it's also nice to have the discoverability and monetization opportunities of a centralized app store.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    > Web has such nice tooling to develop for ...really? Web development is the absolute worst development experience I've had since doing COBOL in college. I have difficulty believing anyone can claim this who has ever developed with proper tooling for anything else.
    - rhlsthrm 6y ago
      I guess I haven't done too much outside of web to know much else :). However I have done some iOS stuff and the tools are okay but much less open source, documentation, etc.
  - lxgr 6y ago
    The current answer here seems to be Electron, which unfortunately means that I have about 20 copies of Chromium/Electron taking up disk space and memory on my computer.
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    IMO, only when native apps dependency on smartphones are reduced we can see web apps maturing. PWA, Linux phone's dependency on web apps can help a bit, but I don't see it beyond the enthusiast/privacy market. Because App publisher - Appstore relationship is 'scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' type relationship. Top apps isn't going to get as much telemetry from web app as they get from native app, at least not without people knowing or fighting with ad-blockers.
mtrycz2 6y ago
You can't really make this statement without linking to https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
So everything just moves up one layer of abstraction, takes the associated resource hit, and the cycle begins anew.
meheleventyone 6y ago
Everything just pops up a layer though, you now have to deal with performance and behavior differences between browsers. And for games you'll see everyone accounting for the 80% case (Chrome) maybe the 20% case (Firefox/Safari) and everyone else left out in the cold. Somewhat simpler API surface layer though. The real beauty of the web is to be able to jump into something just by following a link and that lets you do some really fun things. For example we recently collaborated with the streamer Day[9] to build this swarm game* he played with his audience. That basically requires the ease of access you get from the web experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 * - The whole game was also built from inside a browser.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

Technically it can, but money from Appstore, Playstore, Windows Store is too lucrative for the behemoths to give up their hold on them to improve the browser ecosystem & web apps in general.

rhlsthrm 6y ago
Is there a way to reconcile this? Web has such nice tooling to develop for, but it's also nice to have the discoverability and monetization opportunities of a centralized app store.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > Web has such nice tooling to develop for ...really? Web development is the absolute worst development experience I've had since doing COBOL in college. I have difficulty believing anyone can claim this who has ever developed with proper tooling for anything else.
  - rhlsthrm 6y ago
    I guess I haven't done too much outside of web to know much else :). However I have done some iOS stuff and the tools are okay but much less open source, documentation, etc.
- lxgr 6y ago
  The current answer here seems to be Electron, which unfortunately means that I have about 20 copies of Chromium/Electron taking up disk space and memory on my computer.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  IMO, only when native apps dependency on smartphones are reduced we can see web apps maturing. PWA, Linux phone's dependency on web apps can help a bit, but I don't see it beyond the enthusiast/privacy market. Because App publisher - Appstore relationship is 'scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' type relationship. Top apps isn't going to get as much telemetry from web app as they get from native app, at least not without people knowing or fighting with ad-blockers.

mtrycz2 6y ago

You can't really make this statement without linking to https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

So everything just moves up one layer of abstraction, takes the associated resource hit, and the cycle begins anew.

meheleventyone 6y ago

Everything just pops up a layer though, you now have to deal with performance and behavior differences between browsers. And for games you'll see everyone accounting for the 80% case (Chrome) maybe the 20% case (Firefox/Safari) and everyone else left out in the cold. Somewhat simpler API surface layer though. The real beauty of the web is to be able to jump into something just by following a link and that lets you do some really fun things. For example we recently collaborated with the streamer Day[9] to build this swarm game* he played with his audience. That basically requires the ease of access you get from the web experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 * - The whole game was also built from inside a browser.