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The author’s conclusion is that due to the current situation being non-optimal, we should give up on browsers all together? I’m not sure what exactly he is prop

The author’s conclusion is that due to the current situation being non-optimal, we should give up on browsers all together? I’m not sure what exactly he is proposing as it’s obviously too late to turn the clock back on the existence of interactive web sites. I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop or Final Fantasy XIV. Standards are there to guide compatibility between products of large players and content producers. Apple is not a small company compared to Google or anyone; they’re merely not trying very hard. Mozilla is somehow doing a decent job despite not having $300 billion in cash stashed away. I do believe that browsers doing what native apps can do is reasonable and useful. The arguments about security are not particularly persuasive. The biggest threats to mobile security currently seem to be apps in official app stores.

dmitriid 5y ago
> I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop Procreate. Acorn. Pixelmator. Affinity. All small developers. All successful and eating a chunk of Photoshop's lunch. Sketch and Figma outright stole Adobe's lunch. > or Final Fantasy XIV. Not all games have to be FFXIV to be enjoyable or playable. And indie games are thriving. However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web. That isn't really true since if it were we wouldn't have had the problem of IE back in the day or Safari today.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    I don't understand your logic. Since 1999 we've added anything from flexbox and grids to CSS to web components to DOM to classes, sets, symbols, workers etc. to Javascript. Even things like standardizing HTML rendering didn't happen until mid 00s. Fire up a VM and run the modern web in IE 6. You'll fond a surprising number of browsers failing in subtle and not--so-subtle ways.
    - code_duck 5y ago
      I think the intent of that comment was to say that almost-full-featured browsers like safari are currently adequate to browse the vast majority of websites. Personally, the only time I run into sites where some feature is Chrome-only is tech demo type pages I find on HN.
- code_duck 5y ago
  Photoshop isn't a great example, but my point was to reference large software packages that are naturally so complex as to require far more resources than a small company can muster. I can think of at least a dozen major packages that are made by a very large company or major open source project because that's how much labor it requires for the features people expect, and people by-and-large are not clamoring for feature or complexity reduction across the industry. Sure, less comprehensive games than the most extensive MMOs exist. You could use a stripped down browser that doesn't implement every feature, too. <my question was, could a team of 10 people make games as extensive as the most extensive games like GTA5 or TESO from their own labor? That isn't possible nor would I expect it. I don't expect a small open source project to release something as polished as iOS next year, either. Given the potential security issues of any network software, I also don't want to use a browser made by a small team.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
>I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop Specifically for this example I do strongly believe Photoshop will be dethroned in the next 5 years and the app that will achieve it will be by a <30 person dev team. Think this is an outlier though because it's so antiquated and barely uses your computing power and the dev team clearly doesn't want to actually do anything challenging to fix it. Yet a team starting from scratch today would build it in a very different way, much more GPU focused and I think it will surprise us just how much better it is.

dmitriid 5y ago

> I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop Procreate. Acorn. Pixelmator. Affinity. All small developers. All successful and eating a chunk of Photoshop's lunch. Sketch and Figma outright stole Adobe's lunch. > or Final Fantasy XIV. Not all games have to be FFXIV to be enjoyable or playable. And indie games are thriving. However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web.

Dah00n 5y ago
>However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web. That isn't really true since if it were we wouldn't have had the problem of IE back in the day or Safari today.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  I don't understand your logic. Since 1999 we've added anything from flexbox and grids to CSS to web components to DOM to classes, sets, symbols, workers etc. to Javascript. Even things like standardizing HTML rendering didn't happen until mid 00s. Fire up a VM and run the modern web in IE 6. You'll fond a surprising number of browsers failing in subtle and not--so-subtle ways.
  - code_duck 5y ago
    I think the intent of that comment was to say that almost-full-featured browsers like safari are currently adequate to browse the vast majority of websites. Personally, the only time I run into sites where some feature is Chrome-only is tech demo type pages I find on HN.
code_duck 5y ago
Photoshop isn't a great example, but my point was to reference large software packages that are naturally so complex as to require far more resources than a small company can muster. I can think of at least a dozen major packages that are made by a very large company or major open source project because that's how much labor it requires for the features people expect, and people by-and-large are not clamoring for feature or complexity reduction across the industry. Sure, less comprehensive games than the most extensive MMOs exist. You could use a stripped down browser that doesn't implement every feature, too. <my question was, could a team of 10 people make games as extensive as the most extensive games like GTA5 or TESO from their own labor? That isn't possible nor would I expect it. I don't expect a small open source project to release something as polished as iOS next year, either. Given the potential security issues of any network software, I also don't want to use a browser made by a small team.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

>I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop Specifically for this example I do strongly believe Photoshop will be dethroned in the next 5 years and the app that will achieve it will be by a <30 person dev team. Think this is an outlier though because it's so antiquated and barely uses your computing power and the dev team clearly doesn't want to actually do anything challenging to fix it. Yet a team starting from scratch today would build it in a very different way, much more GPU focused and I think it will surprise us just how much better it is.