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"I want desperately to be a web developer again, but if I have to wait until 2020 for browsers to do what Cocoa can do in 2010, I won’t wait." -Joe Hewitt [1]

"I want desperately to be a web developer again, but if I have to wait until 2020 for browsers to do what Cocoa can do in 2010, I won’t wait." -Joe Hewitt [1] I wonder if Joe Hewitt is not going to wait, and he will channel his energies into helping HTML5 catch the native app rocket ships. Go beyond Firebug. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/

nupark2 16y ago
... helping HTML5 catch the native app rocket ships. Can it? It feels like the browsers are slaves to their own success; what the web desperately needs to compete with native applications is the antithesis of what the web has become. To compete, the web would need: - A runtime environment that can run complex applications -- including games -- with high performance on low-end mobile devices. - Support for languages other than JavaScript, without having to compile to JavaScript (for why javascript is not an adequate compilation target, see above). - A common, consistent, high-level application UI toolkit, with support for re-usable UI components. The seperation between HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is the wrong one. We need 'native' widgets rendered in canvas, using a coherent hierarchical view-based design -- not the DOM. You can build this on top of HTML/JS/CSS (see Obj-J/Cappuccino), but that's like saying that all turing complete languages are equal because they can emulate each other. Any progress that a particular vendor might make (such as WebSockets, NaCL) will be held back by the other vendors (looking at you, Mozilla). If you help the web catch up to modern native apps, you'll have just re-created native apps -- sandboxed, native code execution speed, coherent application libraries, etc...
- wslh 16y ago
  ... and a good IDE to build the stuff with drag & drop.
- nekoZonbi 16y ago
  There is one huge company, whose name start with g, highly interested in all of the above (they want to make a web apps based os). but seems like they have lacked the inspiration, or... mm.... maybe they are quietly doing it right now, with NaCl
  - kayoone 16y ago
    That doesnt change the fact that mozilla isnt interested in NaCl, which is sad because it could enable alot of cool stuff, especially in regards to games and realtime apps.
- Joeri 16y ago
  There are already a few consistent ui toolkits, even with visual designers. Ext js for example. I've developed desktop apps, and building ext js apps isn't far off from that experience anymore. Maybe it would help if we could get the various javascript frameworks to agree on a component spec. Also, performance on the mobile space is a matter of waiting 2 or 3 years. Mobile perf is moving up fast, partly by browser revs and partly by better hardware. People used to say we needed something better than javascript and the dom on the desktop as well, and a few years of moore's law made that discussion irrelevant. Browser tech isn't bad enough to need replacing, so i don't see it getting replaced.
  - nupark2 16y ago
    This is why the modern native application environments are winning, and the web isn't: "There are already _a few_ consistent ui toolkits" "isn't far off", "maybe it would help," "matter of waiting 2 or 3 years" ... To compete, the web environment has to change drastically, but those that have invested in the web as it exists today don't want to change. > Browser tech isn't bad enough to need replacing, so i don't see it getting replaced. That's just the thing, though -- for applications, it is being replaced.
    - Joeri 16y ago
      My "in three years" remark was meant to indicate when the web model's downsides will become irrelevant. But i think the web is winning right now. The desktop is going webbased faster and faster. It doesn't seem so if you look at games and media software, yet, but in the enterprise market you're laughed out of the room if you don't have a web app. Native apps lost that fight a while ago. They lost for a simple reason: the deployment model is superior, and the app quality of web apps was good enough. Back to mobile, the app stores make it way easier to ship native apps, and the browsers make it harder to deploy web apps. The consequence is that on mobile native still wins. The app stores may turn out to be better than the web for shipping apps. The web won't win that fight by making it easier to build better apps, it will only do so by making it easier to ship.
      - 16y ago
joehewitt 16y ago
There is definitely an opportunity to create an amazing HTML5 IDE, but I also think that smaller and more focused tools have value. I intend to avoid the temptation to try and boil the ocean so that I can actually ship something useful this year.
- wallflower 16y ago
  Admire your focus to cut scope and ship! Don't forget to soft launch on HN!

nupark2 16y ago

... helping HTML5 catch the native app rocket ships. Can it? It feels like the browsers are slaves to their own success; what the web desperately needs to compete with native applications is the antithesis of what the web has become. To compete, the web would need: - A runtime environment that can run complex applications -- including games -- with high performance on low-end mobile devices. - Support for languages other than JavaScript, without having to compile to JavaScript (for why javascript is not an adequate compilation target, see above). - A common, consistent, high-level application UI toolkit, with support for re-usable UI components. The seperation between HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is the wrong one. We need 'native' widgets rendered in canvas, using a coherent hierarchical view-based design -- not the DOM. You can build this on top of HTML/JS/CSS (see Obj-J/Cappuccino), but that's like saying that all turing complete languages are equal because they can emulate each other. Any progress that a particular vendor might make (such as WebSockets, NaCL) will be held back by the other vendors (looking at you, Mozilla). If you help the web catch up to modern native apps, you'll have just re-created native apps -- sandboxed, native code execution speed, coherent application libraries, etc...

wslh 16y ago
... and a good IDE to build the stuff with drag & drop.
nekoZonbi 16y ago
There is one huge company, whose name start with g, highly interested in all of the above (they want to make a web apps based os). but seems like they have lacked the inspiration, or... mm.... maybe they are quietly doing it right now, with NaCl
- kayoone 16y ago
  That doesnt change the fact that mozilla isnt interested in NaCl, which is sad because it could enable alot of cool stuff, especially in regards to games and realtime apps.
Joeri 16y ago
There are already a few consistent ui toolkits, even with visual designers. Ext js for example. I've developed desktop apps, and building ext js apps isn't far off from that experience anymore. Maybe it would help if we could get the various javascript frameworks to agree on a component spec. Also, performance on the mobile space is a matter of waiting 2 or 3 years. Mobile perf is moving up fast, partly by browser revs and partly by better hardware. People used to say we needed something better than javascript and the dom on the desktop as well, and a few years of moore's law made that discussion irrelevant. Browser tech isn't bad enough to need replacing, so i don't see it getting replaced.
- nupark2 16y ago
  This is why the modern native application environments are winning, and the web isn't: "There are already _a few_ consistent ui toolkits" "isn't far off", "maybe it would help," "matter of waiting 2 or 3 years" ... To compete, the web environment has to change drastically, but those that have invested in the web as it exists today don't want to change. > Browser tech isn't bad enough to need replacing, so i don't see it getting replaced. That's just the thing, though -- for applications, it is being replaced.
  - Joeri 16y ago
    My "in three years" remark was meant to indicate when the web model's downsides will become irrelevant. But i think the web is winning right now. The desktop is going webbased faster and faster. It doesn't seem so if you look at games and media software, yet, but in the enterprise market you're laughed out of the room if you don't have a web app. Native apps lost that fight a while ago. They lost for a simple reason: the deployment model is superior, and the app quality of web apps was good enough. Back to mobile, the app stores make it way easier to ship native apps, and the browsers make it harder to deploy web apps. The consequence is that on mobile native still wins. The app stores may turn out to be better than the web for shipping apps. The web won't win that fight by making it easier to build better apps, it will only do so by making it easier to ship.
    - 16y ago

joehewitt 16y ago

There is definitely an opportunity to create an amazing HTML5 IDE, but I also think that smaller and more focused tools have value. I intend to avoid the temptation to try and boil the ocean so that I can actually ship something useful this year.

wallflower 16y ago
Admire your focus to cut scope and ship! Don't forget to soft launch on HN!