4 ms·

Could we please just fix native software development, so it doesn't suck, rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? Web pages and JavaScript are the

by jart 6y ago

Could we please just fix native software development, so it doesn't suck, rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? Web pages and JavaScript are the only universally trusted medium for sharing information and simple software. Making it possible for news websites to touch ethernet/usb/serial/gpu compromises that. Same goes for optimizations ilke JIT'ing and WebAssembly which have certainly done a great job making it possible for Gawker to reprogram the microcode in AMD K8 CPUs. Has the long tail of browser innovations made the web go faster? No. It went faster in 2010 IMHO. Whatever performance glut the geniuses who work on Chrome end up creating, it'll just get gobbled by more aggressive display ads and things like wild-eyed web component frameworks.

coldtea 6y ago
>Could we please just fix native software development, so it doesn't suck, rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? Only in the sense that we can fix child hunger rather than spending money in e.g. condo development. That is, technically yes, but nobody with real means cares enough to do it, and those without means don't care enough or have enough power to pressure them...
giancarlostoro 6y ago
I think WASM will eventually produce the solution (hear me out before you tune out). I've been thinking about this for a while. So we have WASI[0], which doesn't yet address the UI issue, but there's half a dozen at least projects attempting to create runtimes for WASM. If most languages wind up compiling for WASM / WASI I think eventually a good effort could be done towards a WASI-UI or WASUI. Imagine if major OS platforms had a common UI framework that any language can produce a UI for, every major browser already supports WASM, why not a WASI based common runtime that would benefit every OS that supports it. I havent seen anyone else discussing this I've just been contemplating it for a while and I'm not sure what it would look like short of recreating a cross-platform X window system. However, as crazy as I sound my reason for this is simple: the issue with a lot of UI frameworks is that they tend to be language specific and are mostly useful to the languages they officially or directly support. If you can build a UI compatible stack that any language can target, you can gain a lot more adoption. I could easily see Rust, D, Go, etc supporting a common UI runtime. Electron sells itself rather easily cause most devs are familiar with HTML / CSS / JS. What we need is a cross-platform cross-language solution that isn't XML based but something a language can implement rather simply, or maybe even a compiler / standard library could manage. [0]: https://wasi.dev/ https://wasi.dev/
- thwarted 6y ago
  Imagine if major OS platforms had a common UI framework that any language can produce a UI This has been attempted a number of times, both in the browser and without, and it always comes down to people complaining that the widget set isn't "native" in look and feel and operation, and the pendulum swings back the other way. People used to complain that browser widgets didn't confirm to the OS's UI guidelines. Then you could style them with CSS and things really started looking crappy, then you have web UI frameworks that forgo all that customization (or at least discourages it in the name of ease of development).
  - koolba 6y ago
    That’s not an issue when all native OS’s UI become a thin veneer stop WebKit.
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    I remember when people used to tell me VB6 was slow... but I bet you a lot of VB6 apps are miles faster than Electron apps and use significantly less resources / storage despite being single threaded by comparison.
  - rubber_duck 6y ago
    Umm - a large group of most popular productivity apps are cross platform and look nothing like native - from dev tools like IDEA, VSCode over Slack, MS Office, to multimedia tools like Adobe tools, almost all 3D modeling software like maya, max, audio software like Ableton, FL. None of the apps I use on a day to day basis look native (ie. like the apps provided by Apple) You are confusing cross platform UI with frameworks that have programmer art widgets and no cross platform polish - eg. GTK+, FLTK, and even to some extent QT widgets (and many more). When people say widgets don't look native they usually mean "the widgets suck", you can create beautiful cross platform apps - Electron has quite a few because it allows standard designer tools from web dev. Flutter is another promising development, but the desktop port seems underwhelming - it's obvious the widgets were intended for mobile apps, they will probably need a custom widget set to cover desktop UI - but the approach is sound.
Havoc 6y ago
>rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? Given Chromebooks etc that seems to be exactly the plan
eckza 6y ago
Atwood's Law is here to stay. I hate it just as much as you do.
DangitBobby 6y ago
Do you want to 1) do difficult and frustrating plumbing work to fix what's already here and slightly broken or 2) design and make a new generation of things with your goals and your own tools? Which one sounds more like a career that results in dying young due to extreme boredom and head-desk trauma?
amadeuspagel 6y ago
> Could we please just fix native software development, so it doesn't suck, rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? People have been trying to fix native software development forever, from the JVM to electron. But the web remains the only open platform for distributing software that works on every device. Fixing native software development will eventually mean making the web native, so that your OS is just a browser. > Making it possible for news websites to touch ethernet/usb/serial/gpu compromises that. There's a simple and obvious solution for that, which is to make them ask for permission, just like with desktop notifications. > Same goes for optimizations ilke JIT'ing and WebAssembly which have certainly done a great job making it possible for Gawker to reprogram the microcode in AMD K8 CPUs. What kind of argument is this? Someone who doesn't need a technology uses it anyway, so ... it's worthless?
- anamax 6y ago
  > Fixing native software development will eventually mean making the web native, so that your OS is just a browser. The OS will become a set of poorly debugged device drivers?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > Fixing native software development will eventually mean making the web native, so that your OS is just a browser. Frankly, it is hard to imagine a more hellish future for personal computing than that.

by jart 6y ago

coldtea 6y ago

>Could we please just fix native software development, so it doesn't suck, rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? Only in the sense that we can fix child hunger rather than spending money in e.g. condo development. That is, technically yes, but nobody with real means cares enough to do it, and those without means don't care enough or have enough power to pressure them...

giancarlostoro 6y ago

I think WASM will eventually produce the solution (hear me out before you tune out). I've been thinking about this for a while. So we have WASI[0], which doesn't yet address the UI issue, but there's half a dozen at least projects attempting to create runtimes for WASM. If most languages wind up compiling for WASM / WASI I think eventually a good effort could be done towards a WASI-UI or WASUI. Imagine if major OS platforms had a common UI framework that any language can produce a UI for, every major browser already supports WASM, why not a WASI based common runtime that would benefit every OS that supports it. I havent seen anyone else discussing this I've just been contemplating it for a while and I'm not sure what it would look like short of recreating a cross-platform X window system. However, as crazy as I sound my reason for this is simple: the issue with a lot of UI frameworks is that they tend to be language specific and are mostly useful to the languages they officially or directly support. If you can build a UI compatible stack that any language can target, you can gain a lot more adoption. I could easily see Rust, D, Go, etc supporting a common UI runtime. Electron sells itself rather easily cause most devs are familiar with HTML / CSS / JS. What we need is a cross-platform cross-language solution that isn't XML based but something a language can implement rather simply, or maybe even a compiler / standard library could manage. [0]: https://wasi.dev/ https://wasi.dev/

thwarted 6y ago
Imagine if major OS platforms had a common UI framework that any language can produce a UI This has been attempted a number of times, both in the browser and without, and it always comes down to people complaining that the widget set isn't "native" in look and feel and operation, and the pendulum swings back the other way. People used to complain that browser widgets didn't confirm to the OS's UI guidelines. Then you could style them with CSS and things really started looking crappy, then you have web UI frameworks that forgo all that customization (or at least discourages it in the name of ease of development).
- koolba 6y ago
  That’s not an issue when all native OS’s UI become a thin veneer stop WebKit.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  I remember when people used to tell me VB6 was slow... but I bet you a lot of VB6 apps are miles faster than Electron apps and use significantly less resources / storage despite being single threaded by comparison.
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  Umm - a large group of most popular productivity apps are cross platform and look nothing like native - from dev tools like IDEA, VSCode over Slack, MS Office, to multimedia tools like Adobe tools, almost all 3D modeling software like maya, max, audio software like Ableton, FL. None of the apps I use on a day to day basis look native (ie. like the apps provided by Apple) You are confusing cross platform UI with frameworks that have programmer art widgets and no cross platform polish - eg. GTK+, FLTK, and even to some extent QT widgets (and many more). When people say widgets don't look native they usually mean "the widgets suck", you can create beautiful cross platform apps - Electron has quite a few because it allows standard designer tools from web dev. Flutter is another promising development, but the desktop port seems underwhelming - it's obvious the widgets were intended for mobile apps, they will probably need a custom widget set to cover desktop UI - but the approach is sound.

Havoc 6y ago

>rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? Given Chromebooks etc that seems to be exactly the plan

eckza 6y ago

Atwood's Law is here to stay. I hate it just as much as you do.

DangitBobby 6y ago

Do you want to 1) do difficult and frustrating plumbing work to fix what's already here and slightly broken or 2) design and make a new generation of things with your goals and your own tools? Which one sounds more like a career that results in dying young due to extreme boredom and head-desk trauma?

amadeuspagel 6y ago

> Could we please just fix native software development, so it doesn't suck, rather than adding the kitchen sink to web browsers? People have been trying to fix native software development forever, from the JVM to electron. But the web remains the only open platform for distributing software that works on every device. Fixing native software development will eventually mean making the web native, so that your OS is just a browser. > Making it possible for news websites to touch ethernet/usb/serial/gpu compromises that. There's a simple and obvious solution for that, which is to make them ask for permission, just like with desktop notifications. > Same goes for optimizations ilke JIT'ing and WebAssembly which have certainly done a great job making it possible for Gawker to reprogram the microcode in AMD K8 CPUs. What kind of argument is this? Someone who doesn't need a technology uses it anyway, so ... it's worthless?

anamax 6y ago
> Fixing native software development will eventually mean making the web native, so that your OS is just a browser. The OS will become a set of poorly debugged device drivers?
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> Fixing native software development will eventually mean making the web native, so that your OS is just a browser. Frankly, it is hard to imagine a more hellish future for personal computing than that.