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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", "mayb

by nupark2 15y 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 15y 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.
- nupark2 15y ago
  We're talking about the modern landscape of native applications -- iOS, Android -- in which apps certainly have not "lost". The legacy desktop application distribution model you're referencing -- one in which a toolbar can spy on you -- is fading away. The web has the distribution problem solved, but as an application technology platform, it's horrible. Now that we've got a route forward with distribution of native apps, the native app market is growing by leaps and bounds, and it's the web that needs to catch up. What I'd like to see is a common application platform, PNaCL based, with consistent high-level APIs .. but that would NOT be the web as we know it. It would be another native application platform.
ootachi 15y ago
PNaCl is more than two years away from mainstream adoption though. The system is huge and complex due to the fact that it stretches LLVM far beyond what it was meant to handle. For example, LLVM was never designed to have platform-independent bitcode; to make it work they basically had to find ways to make the x86 data layout sorta work for all platforms. Additionally, LLVM bitcode is huge; it was designed to be an intermediate language for compilers, not a packaging mechanism for application distribution. If we were to use PNaCl, even once Google sorts out all the technical issues, in order to compete with native mobile apps, a whole ecosystem of toolkits and libraries will have to be created. That will take time, and we will see growing pains just like the ones we're seeing with mobile app frameworks for JavaScript. Compare this to the status quo with JS. In two years, JavaScript will be as fast as NaCl for 90% of applications out there. Look at the speed of LuaJIT, which is the closest cousin to the modern JS engines, compared to C [1]. And this is on scientific number-crunching microbenchmarks! We don't have to throw away the lingua franca of the web in order to achieve good performance. [1]: http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-06/msg00071.html http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-06/msg00071.html
- nupark2 15y ago
  If PNaCL or similar can't be leveraged, then the web won't keep up as an app platform. Let's look at the modern platforms: - Microsoft is innovating heavily on the language front with C#, F#, and the CLR. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's platforms, but there is no denying that they're doing very interesting work in language and runtime design. - Google is innovating with Android, the Dalvik VM, and an application development framework not too much worse than Apple's. You have the NDK at your disposal, and many GL-based games can be ported without too much complexity from iOS. Numerous languages are being ported to the JVM, and are supported on Android. - Apple is innovating with UIKit and high-level high-quality application development frameworks. Even if ObjC isn't particularly cutting edge, it's a reasonable solution for building large applications, it's fast enough, and you've got C at hand. The browser makers, however, are fighting over whether or not WebSockets can actually be included in the browser; meanwhile, Apple rolled out GameKit support for automatic peer-to-peer session negotiation over bluetooth, wifi, and the internet to support multiplayer games. The web as an application platform is broken, and will continue to be so as long as browser makers attempt to force everyone to stick to one language, lacking a standardized platform API, using a poor view model (DOM/HTML/CSS), stuck in the browser's limited sandbox.

by nupark2 15y ago

Joeri 15y 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.

nupark2 15y ago
We're talking about the modern landscape of native applications -- iOS, Android -- in which apps certainly have not "lost". The legacy desktop application distribution model you're referencing -- one in which a toolbar can spy on you -- is fading away. The web has the distribution problem solved, but as an application technology platform, it's horrible. Now that we've got a route forward with distribution of native apps, the native app market is growing by leaps and bounds, and it's the web that needs to catch up. What I'd like to see is a common application platform, PNaCL based, with consistent high-level APIs .. but that would NOT be the web as we know it. It would be another native application platform.

ootachi 15y ago

PNaCl is more than two years away from mainstream adoption though. The system is huge and complex due to the fact that it stretches LLVM far beyond what it was meant to handle. For example, LLVM was never designed to have platform-independent bitcode; to make it work they basically had to find ways to make the x86 data layout sorta work for all platforms. Additionally, LLVM bitcode is huge; it was designed to be an intermediate language for compilers, not a packaging mechanism for application distribution. If we were to use PNaCl, even once Google sorts out all the technical issues, in order to compete with native mobile apps, a whole ecosystem of toolkits and libraries will have to be created. That will take time, and we will see growing pains just like the ones we're seeing with mobile app frameworks for JavaScript. Compare this to the status quo with JS. In two years, JavaScript will be as fast as NaCl for 90% of applications out there. Look at the speed of LuaJIT, which is the closest cousin to the modern JS engines, compared to C [1]. And this is on scientific number-crunching microbenchmarks! We don't have to throw away the lingua franca of the web in order to achieve good performance. [1]: http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-06/msg00071.html http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-06/msg00071.html

nupark2 15y ago
If PNaCL or similar can't be leveraged, then the web won't keep up as an app platform. Let's look at the modern platforms: - Microsoft is innovating heavily on the language front with C#, F#, and the CLR. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's platforms, but there is no denying that they're doing very interesting work in language and runtime design. - Google is innovating with Android, the Dalvik VM, and an application development framework not too much worse than Apple's. You have the NDK at your disposal, and many GL-based games can be ported without too much complexity from iOS. Numerous languages are being ported to the JVM, and are supported on Android. - Apple is innovating with UIKit and high-level high-quality application development frameworks. Even if ObjC isn't particularly cutting edge, it's a reasonable solution for building large applications, it's fast enough, and you've got C at hand. The browser makers, however, are fighting over whether or not WebSockets can actually be included in the browser; meanwhile, Apple rolled out GameKit support for automatic peer-to-peer session negotiation over bluetooth, wifi, and the internet to support multiplayer games. The web as an application platform is broken, and will continue to be so as long as browser makers attempt to force everyone to stick to one language, lacking a standardized platform API, using a poor view model (DOM/HTML/CSS), stuck in the browser's limited sandbox.