6 ms·

Popular apps will be as slow as user can tolerate. Because if they're not slow enough, it invites developers to introduce another abstraction layer. Good thing

Popular apps will be as slow as user can tolerate. Because if they're not slow enough, it invites developers to introduce another abstraction layer. Good thing is, that it's possible to create truly groundbreaking apps using non-conventional techniques, as web becomes faster and richer with new APIs. For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. Someone will do it. It'll be awesome. I have one example to prove my words. I used iPhone 4S. With iOS 6 I was able to use navigator software which worked very snappy and awesome. Few years later with iOS 9, navigator was very slow, forcing me to buy new phone eventually. With iPhone 8 it returned to blazing fast. But it did not have any new functions. They just started to consume more memory, just because they can. My UX did not change a little bit. I just had to buy new phone with infinitely faster CPU and loads of RAM, just to keep my UX from degrading.

mofosyne 5y ago
If only we can charge a price for taking up too much ram or cpu cycles.
- eru 5y ago
  Just don't use it?
flohofwoe 5y ago
> For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. This has been promised since at least the WebGL and asm.js days. It still won't happen, but not mainly for technical reasons, but for business reasons. ...but of course also some technical reasons. Asm.js/WASM and WebGL/WebGPU are fine, but most other web APIs are a mess and the web is a highly unstable platform, APIs are deactivated or deprecated on a whim, APIs change behaviour unpredictably, behaviour differs between browsers, etc etc... TL;DR: the web needs a proper "DirectX initiative" like what Microsoft did in the late 90's to get Windows gaming off the ground.
- nsomaru 5y ago
  What are the business reasons? Surely the web is just a platform for delivery? Payment etc can happen through the browser.
  - flohofwoe 5y ago
    I agree, but tell that to the "money people" in big game studios ;) The web simply isn't on their radar, even mobile isn't for the most part. They want strong centralized platforms like Steam, EGS, Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo and a platform owner to negotiate with. This can change very quickly if there's actually some breakthrough web game, but that hasn't happened so far, and nobody wants to be the first to take the risk.
    - coretx 5y ago
      Both Unreal Engine and Unity already have Google Stadia for a compile target ( Debian/vulkan )and it runs in the browser. As consoles have become more and more generic and all carry a browser, less money is being invested in platform specific engines because there is less relative performance increase & return on investment compared to the past. ( Games sold the platform, not the other way round ) Risks have been taken by big players and everything is becoming more and more platform agnostic therefore we could reasonable expect "breakthrough" when they are done milking the cow previously invested in and see them expand to a bigger market.
      - flohofwoe 5y ago
        > ...and it runs in the browser That's not correct though, the game runs on a Linux box in Google's datacenters (granted, from a business perspective that's nitpicking - but not quite, see below, but it's a massive difference from a technical perspective). Scaling to large audiences is much more expensive with the game streaming approach though (but we'll never really know because Stadia bombed, just as all other game streaming platforms before).
        5y ago
moonchrome 5y ago
>For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. Someone will do it. It'll be awesome. You get a shitty distribution model (relying on browser for cache or limited localstorage, or whatever you want it's shitty in the browser and inconsistent, browsers aren't built to handle GB sized assets). You pay the sandbox tax even in the ideal scenario and there are plenty pathological ones. And even if you aren't performance constrained you're adding battery drain for no benefit. Then there's the shitty input model and interaction with browser chrome. And what are the benefits exactly ? Avoiding app stores ? Might benefit the developer but not really a benefit for the consumer.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  >And what are the benefits exactly ? Avoiding app stores ? Might benefit the developer but not really a benefit for the consumer. well, if a company can avoid paying a significant portion of revenue to an app store they might be able to hire better or more developers which might conceivably be a benefit for the consumer.
  - incrudible 5y ago
    Does your experience as a consumer not suggest that the amount of developers employed is, if at all, inversely correlated with software quality?
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      no, it suggests that just as the amount of developers past a certain point on a project is a drag on that project the amount of developers of a product past a certain point does not significantly increase the quality of that product. If indeed the amount of developers employed was inversely correlated with software quality then the best software is that which does not exist. I realize there is a pithy saying that the best code is no code at all but I am not especially fond of such illogical pithiness. There may be products that it is best they not exist at all, but for products we do want to exist it follows that some number of developers of that product correlates with the quality of its existence.
rakoo 5y ago
This reminds me of Parkinson's law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law). Paraphrased: "complexity expands so as to fill the time available for its consumption". The faster a software can be, the more things it seems to do just for achieving the same features. It's also probably another view of the Jevons Paradox: as efficiency of software increases, it gives more way for more complexity and "optimizations" that in the end make the end result as slow as before.
- pwdisswordfish0 5y ago
  > Paraphrased: "complexity expands so as to fill the time available for its consumption" That's a very liberal paraphrasing. Parkinson's law is specifically about the amount of time that it takes to complete work (by humans, e.g. for a project deadline). If you want to reference something that serves as good commentary about software performance, Wirth's law is right there for the using.
wetpaws 5y ago
>For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. Someone will do it. It'll be awesome. Carmack already tried to do it with Quake Live. It did not go far.
- Narishma 5y ago
  Quake Live didn't run in the browser. It used the browser as a UI for configuration and connecting to the servers but the game itself ran as a native plugin.

mofosyne 5y ago

If only we can charge a price for taking up too much ram or cpu cycles.

eru 5y ago
Just don't use it?

flohofwoe 5y ago

> For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. This has been promised since at least the WebGL and asm.js days. It still won't happen, but not mainly for technical reasons, but for business reasons. ...but of course also some technical reasons. Asm.js/WASM and WebGL/WebGPU are fine, but most other web APIs are a mess and the web is a highly unstable platform, APIs are deactivated or deprecated on a whim, APIs change behaviour unpredictably, behaviour differs between browsers, etc etc... TL;DR: the web needs a proper "DirectX initiative" like what Microsoft did in the late 90's to get Windows gaming off the ground.

nsomaru 5y ago
What are the business reasons? Surely the web is just a platform for delivery? Payment etc can happen through the browser.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  I agree, but tell that to the "money people" in big game studios ;) The web simply isn't on their radar, even mobile isn't for the most part. They want strong centralized platforms like Steam, EGS, Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo and a platform owner to negotiate with. This can change very quickly if there's actually some breakthrough web game, but that hasn't happened so far, and nobody wants to be the first to take the risk.
  - coretx 5y ago
    Both Unreal Engine and Unity already have Google Stadia for a compile target ( Debian/vulkan )and it runs in the browser. As consoles have become more and more generic and all carry a browser, less money is being invested in platform specific engines because there is less relative performance increase & return on investment compared to the past. ( Games sold the platform, not the other way round ) Risks have been taken by big players and everything is becoming more and more platform agnostic therefore we could reasonable expect "breakthrough" when they are done milking the cow previously invested in and see them expand to a bigger market.
    - flohofwoe 5y ago
      > ...and it runs in the browser That's not correct though, the game runs on a Linux box in Google's datacenters (granted, from a business perspective that's nitpicking - but not quite, see below, but it's a massive difference from a technical perspective). Scaling to large audiences is much more expensive with the game streaming approach though (but we'll never really know because Stadia bombed, just as all other game streaming platforms before).
      - 5y ago

moonchrome 5y ago

>For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. Someone will do it. It'll be awesome. You get a shitty distribution model (relying on browser for cache or limited localstorage, or whatever you want it's shitty in the browser and inconsistent, browsers aren't built to handle GB sized assets). You pay the sandbox tax even in the ideal scenario and there are plenty pathological ones. And even if you aren't performance constrained you're adding battery drain for no benefit. Then there's the shitty input model and interaction with browser chrome. And what are the benefits exactly ? Avoiding app stores ? Might benefit the developer but not really a benefit for the consumer.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>And what are the benefits exactly ? Avoiding app stores ? Might benefit the developer but not really a benefit for the consumer. well, if a company can avoid paying a significant portion of revenue to an app store they might be able to hire better or more developers which might conceivably be a benefit for the consumer.
- incrudible 5y ago
  Does your experience as a consumer not suggest that the amount of developers employed is, if at all, inversely correlated with software quality?
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    no, it suggests that just as the amount of developers past a certain point on a project is a drag on that project the amount of developers of a product past a certain point does not significantly increase the quality of that product. If indeed the amount of developers employed was inversely correlated with software quality then the best software is that which does not exist. I realize there is a pithy saying that the best code is no code at all but I am not especially fond of such illogical pithiness. There may be products that it is best they not exist at all, but for products we do want to exist it follows that some number of developers of that product correlates with the quality of its existence.

rakoo 5y ago

This reminds me of Parkinson's law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law). Paraphrased: "complexity expands so as to fill the time available for its consumption". The faster a software can be, the more things it seems to do just for achieving the same features. It's also probably another view of the Jevons Paradox: as efficiency of software increases, it gives more way for more complexity and "optimizations" that in the end make the end result as slow as before.

pwdisswordfish0 5y ago
> Paraphrased: "complexity expands so as to fill the time available for its consumption" That's a very liberal paraphrasing. Parkinson's law is specifically about the amount of time that it takes to complete work (by humans, e.g. for a project deadline). If you want to reference something that serves as good commentary about software performance, Wirth's law is right there for the using.

wetpaws 5y ago

>For example with Wasm and WebGPU it's possible to create AAA games running in the browser. Someone will do it. It'll be awesome. Carmack already tried to do it with Quake Live. It did not go far.

Narishma 5y ago
Quake Live didn't run in the browser. It used the browser as a UI for configuration and connecting to the servers but the game itself ran as a native plugin.