4 ms·

Wasn't that what flash/shockwave and similar stacks did back then? I fully agree, having the web _describe_ what it wants, and the browser render it makes it s

• andrekandre 6y ago
  there are definitely positives about html and being declarative for sure...at least in the beginning... but looking at the complex beasts that web browsers have become now (maintaining/optimizing js, decades of backwards compatibility etc) it seems in the end, only google and apple can fund them (microsoft throwing in the towel, mozillas recent cutbacks)... im not sure this is what we originally wanted from the web... as you say though, self rendering pages would need an api to provide accessibility, and also html is much easier to grok than bytecodes (developer accessibility) tradeoffs...
• Animats 6y ago
  Not quite. Flash and Shockwave were centrally controlled systems. What Kay probably had in mind, as you can read in Personal Dynamic Media, is all the GUI object frantically sending messages back and forth and aligning themselves. You still see that now and then, with things like chat bubbles in 3D worlds maneuvering themselves to get clear of other chat bubbles and such as viewpoints change and characters move. But for more static general layout, no.