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The advantage of web applications is that you do not have to install and update them, that they are inherently sandboxed, and that they are not operating system

The advantage of web applications is that you do not have to install and update them, that they are inherently sandboxed, and that they are not operating system depended. And even those are not universally good things - server down or no internet connection, no application, feature removed in new version, good luck trying to run an old version, and operating system dependencies give way to browser dependencies. And you have turned even the simplest application into a distribute one unless you put in the effort to make it work offline from the browser cache. Everything else is worse because you are forced to use this single technology stack that the browser offers you. And people are trying to break free of those limitations, WebAssembly, WebUSB, or doing their own rendering into a canvas instead of having a DOM. One size fits all was, is, and will never be true. Are there certain applications that benefit from being web applications? Sure. But is this a panacea? Certainly not. At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. The success of the current situation is, I think, mostly due to the fact that the web browser was a universally adopted least common denominator for running arbitrary code. You could get all the benefits of web applications without the browser, you could have platform independent binaries, you could download them on demand, you could sandbox them. But you probably would have a hard time to invent those standards and get them universally adopted by all platforms and operating systems.

ttfkam 5y ago
> server down or no internet connection, no application Service Workers https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/service-workers/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/servi...
unknown_error 5y ago
I was gonna say that this comment seemed like something from a decade ago... before I realized the article itself is from 2009 (12 years!!) Yes, all of that is true, and arguably none of it matters anymore. > At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. That happened long ago, aside from a few specialized apps in mobile stores. The only time people need those is if they want faster repeat functionality that they use often (email, calendar, some stores, etc.). Otherwise, everything from office work to realtime raytraced gaming can happen in a web browser... and that's great, even if the dev experience relatively sucks and the code is messy. The Web has turned programming from snobby/precise/beautiful/elitist/expensive engineering to arts & crafts and democratized content creation in the process (eh, for better or worse). Nowadays writing a webpage is easier than writing a letter.
IQunder130 5y ago
>At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. Nowadays making calls to the browser API is hardly any different from making system calls, and provides about as much generality independent of the actual operating system. Might just be my new showing but I don't think I remember it being any other way.
LAC-Tech 5y ago
> server down or no internet connection A number of web sites work offline, ie google docs.
bmitc 5y ago
> At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. Why is that good? This is what people keep saying, but now instead of having Windows, Mac OS X, and a few Linux distributions, we know have several different browsers (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, etc.) running on top of several different OSs. The surface for error and behavior differences is much greater and the browser "OSs" are still inferior to the base OS. A desktop app gives me files I can manipulate and pass around, ability to use things offline, multiple windows, etc. To do real work, I almost exclusively still use desktop (non-Electron) applications, where the web is mainly used for searching things, reading documentation, e-mail, and the like. I can't imagine working everyday inside a webapp. The main Electron app I use is Visual Studio Code, and it is held back being a desktop web app, namely due to an inability to have multiple windows within a single app.
game_the0ry 5y ago
> One size fits all was, is, and will never be true. Are there certain applications that benefit from being web applications? Sure. But is this a panacea? Certainly not. Agreed, well-put. Technologist and decision-makers have a tendency to gravitate to one way of doing things (the way they know how) and then advocate that their way is the "one true way" to solve all problems. Rather, there are a lot of tools to solve todays tech and business problems. Best to let the use case drive the choice of tech (ie, web app versus native).

ttfkam 5y ago

> server down or no internet connection, no application Service Workers https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/service-workers/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/servi...

unknown_error 5y ago

I was gonna say that this comment seemed like something from a decade ago... before I realized the article itself is from 2009 (12 years!!) Yes, all of that is true, and arguably none of it matters anymore. > At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. That happened long ago, aside from a few specialized apps in mobile stores. The only time people need those is if they want faster repeat functionality that they use often (email, calendar, some stores, etc.). Otherwise, everything from office work to realtime raytraced gaming can happen in a web browser... and that's great, even if the dev experience relatively sucks and the code is messy. The Web has turned programming from snobby/precise/beautiful/elitist/expensive engineering to arts & crafts and democratized content creation in the process (eh, for better or worse). Nowadays writing a webpage is easier than writing a letter.

IQunder130 5y ago

>At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. Nowadays making calls to the browser API is hardly any different from making system calls, and provides about as much generality independent of the actual operating system. Might just be my new showing but I don't think I remember it being any other way.

LAC-Tech 5y ago

> server down or no internet connection A number of web sites work offline, ie google docs.

bmitc 5y ago

> At some point you browser will just turn into another operating system running on top of your operating system. Why is that good? This is what people keep saying, but now instead of having Windows, Mac OS X, and a few Linux distributions, we know have several different browsers (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, etc.) running on top of several different OSs. The surface for error and behavior differences is much greater and the browser "OSs" are still inferior to the base OS. A desktop app gives me files I can manipulate and pass around, ability to use things offline, multiple windows, etc. To do real work, I almost exclusively still use desktop (non-Electron) applications, where the web is mainly used for searching things, reading documentation, e-mail, and the like. I can't imagine working everyday inside a webapp. The main Electron app I use is Visual Studio Code, and it is held back being a desktop web app, namely due to an inability to have multiple windows within a single app.

game_the0ry 5y ago

> One size fits all was, is, and will never be true. Are there certain applications that benefit from being web applications? Sure. But is this a panacea? Certainly not. Agreed, well-put. Technologist and decision-makers have a tendency to gravitate to one way of doing things (the way they know how) and then advocate that their way is the "one true way" to solve all problems. Rather, there are a lot of tools to solve todays tech and business problems. Best to let the use case drive the choice of tech (ie, web app versus native).