4 ms·

You're conflating two issues. Chromium's dominance is a problem for sure, but that is separate from the web being an open platform. The web is more open than Li

by city41 6y ago

You're conflating two issues. Chromium's dominance is a problem for sure, but that is separate from the web being an open platform. The web is more open than Linux (which I use btw) because a web app can run on Linux, MacOS, Windows, FreeBSD, Android, iOS and more without recompiling, redistributing or re-anything. Would it be nice if it wasn't HTML/JS/CSS based? Absolutely. But we gotta take what we can get. I couldn't agree more that Google's dominance in web technology is a problem. But you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. And just to add, the current situation is still better than proprietary native apps on MacOS and Windows. I can at least use Chromium in many forms and on virtually any operating system. Not ideal, but the alternative people in this thread are suggesting is far worse.

BlueTemplar 6y ago
Works for simple web apps, but for anything complex you are going to run into performance and especially UI issues. (Maybe also being limited to HTTP(S) can be an issue?)
- city41 6y ago
  There has been a ton of work to address all of that such as web assembly, webgl, webgpu, webworkers, websockets, http2, sse, on and on. There's a lot of web tech out there (for better or for worse). You really can make a webapp that's just as feature rich, complex and performant as a native app these days. Still tons of work to be done though, web assembly in particular needs some additional features before it can really shine.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    In theory you can, but it's a mindset of "if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail", happily pushed by Google trying to wrestle control over people's computers from Microsoft.
    - city41 6y ago
      Yeah I agree with that. But Apple has an app store hammer, and Microsoft has a Windows hammer too. Of all the hammers, I feel Google's is the least evil of them all. They're all really bad, the state of technology today is er ... something. But at least with the web, I maintain hardware freedom and really the most freedom overall.
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
        Is it really the least evil ? There's a wide panoply of programming languages that can be used on Windows PCs, including specifically to make user interfaces, which are cross-platform, like Qt.

by city41 6y ago

BlueTemplar 6y ago

Works for simple web apps, but for anything complex you are going to run into performance and especially UI issues. (Maybe also being limited to HTTP(S) can be an issue?)

city41 6y ago
There has been a ton of work to address all of that such as web assembly, webgl, webgpu, webworkers, websockets, http2, sse, on and on. There's a lot of web tech out there (for better or for worse). You really can make a webapp that's just as feature rich, complex and performant as a native app these days. Still tons of work to be done though, web assembly in particular needs some additional features before it can really shine.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  In theory you can, but it's a mindset of "if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail", happily pushed by Google trying to wrestle control over people's computers from Microsoft.
  - city41 6y ago
    Yeah I agree with that. But Apple has an app store hammer, and Microsoft has a Windows hammer too. Of all the hammers, I feel Google's is the least evil of them all. They're all really bad, the state of technology today is er ... something. But at least with the web, I maintain hardware freedom and really the most freedom overall.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Is it really the least evil ? There's a wide panoply of programming languages that can be used on Windows PCs, including specifically to make user interfaces, which are cross-platform, like Qt.