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Is this something to be worried about? I also see more and more things in the field of geography , especially data visualisation, to start living in browsers an

Is this something to be worried about? I also see more and more things in the field of geography , especially data visualisation, to start living in browsers and most people default to Chrome.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
Yes, it is something to worry about. It's wresting control away from users via their no longer able to run native applications. And it's only going to continue with the continuing new generation of programmers who know nothing but JavaScript continue to implement everything in JavaScript because they've never known a world that doesn't have JavaScript.
- cromwellian 5y ago
  Native applications already have subscription models so I don’t get this. And are mobile apps running in locked down OSes truly “native” either? Whether they’re written in WASM or Swift, if they are locked behind an App Store subscription, whether they’re downloaded and stored on the device filesystem permanently or downloaded on the fly and cached as needed is irrelevant as the end user still lacks control and you still end up with an uncrackable walled garden. There some bizarre notions associated with “native” here which I don’t think have anything to do with control over how people run stuff. Likewise, why is a world where most people learn JavaScript any better or worse than a world where most people learn Swift? There’s never going to be a world where no minority languages exist and frankly, the more “pro” languages which have fewer users end up paying more $$$ as they are perceived to require more expertise than scripting languages. Seems like a win/win if concerned. We once celebrated the Web and the idea of ephemerality, portability, “view source” and inspect, etc and now somehow we’re back to people wanting installable binary blobs locked into app stores as somehow superior.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    > We once celebrated the Web and the idea of ephemerality, portability, “view source” and inspect, Back when the web was mostly traditional websites and documents, not apps. > And are mobile apps running in locked down OSes truly “native” either? Whether they’re written in WASM or Swift, if they are locked behind an App Store subscription, whether they’re downloaded and stored on the device filesystem permanently or downloaded on the fly and cached as needed is irrelevant as the end user still lacks control and you still end up with an uncrackable walled garden. They're native if they're running on a native runtime, which is optimized for the device and has full access, instead of the more limited browser. > Likewise, why is a world where most people learn JavaScript any better or worse than a world where most people learn Swift? It's better if one language doesn't completely dominate the application space. Same issue when Java was all the hotness, and people thought everything was going to run on the JVM.
    - cromwellian 5y ago
      What do you mean by full access? Native apps on platforms like iOS and Android run within containers that present a narrowed view of the full platform. If you take a “native” library like QT or wXWindows or even OpenGL do you have “full access”? Any cross platform abstraction or portability layer will remove power and access. Do we really want to argue for a world where all software is written as if the target is a game console to the metal, even when 90% of apps don’t need it?
open-source-ux 5y ago
Is this something to be worried about? Yes. But it is mostly too late to doing anything. The move to the browser has been happening for years. As an example, look at ChromesOS - a cloud operating system (OS) that tracks and records all your activity the moment you sign in. A Google account is required to use the full functionality of the OS. It is used by millions of schoolkids with all the privacy implications that entails. Somehow, Google's promise to never build profiles of their school users is enough to placate developers. In fact, developers are more likely to defend Google rather than question or scrutinise the privacy implications of using a cloud OS. Google must be gleeful they've captured a whole generation of US kids to use Google services through the ubiquity of ChromeOS in US schools. And without any dissenting views from developers on the matter either.

Is this something to be worried about? I also see more and more things in the field of geography , especially data visualisation, to start living in browsers and most people default to Chrome.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

Yes, it is something to worry about. It's wresting control away from users via their no longer able to run native applications. And it's only going to continue with the continuing new generation of programmers who know nothing but JavaScript continue to implement everything in JavaScript because they've never known a world that doesn't have JavaScript.

cromwellian 5y ago
Native applications already have subscription models so I don’t get this. And are mobile apps running in locked down OSes truly “native” either? Whether they’re written in WASM or Swift, if they are locked behind an App Store subscription, whether they’re downloaded and stored on the device filesystem permanently or downloaded on the fly and cached as needed is irrelevant as the end user still lacks control and you still end up with an uncrackable walled garden. There some bizarre notions associated with “native” here which I don’t think have anything to do with control over how people run stuff. Likewise, why is a world where most people learn JavaScript any better or worse than a world where most people learn Swift? There’s never going to be a world where no minority languages exist and frankly, the more “pro” languages which have fewer users end up paying more $$$ as they are perceived to require more expertise than scripting languages. Seems like a win/win if concerned. We once celebrated the Web and the idea of ephemerality, portability, “view source” and inspect, etc and now somehow we’re back to people wanting installable binary blobs locked into app stores as somehow superior.
- goatlover 5y ago
  > We once celebrated the Web and the idea of ephemerality, portability, “view source” and inspect, Back when the web was mostly traditional websites and documents, not apps. > And are mobile apps running in locked down OSes truly “native” either? Whether they’re written in WASM or Swift, if they are locked behind an App Store subscription, whether they’re downloaded and stored on the device filesystem permanently or downloaded on the fly and cached as needed is irrelevant as the end user still lacks control and you still end up with an uncrackable walled garden. They're native if they're running on a native runtime, which is optimized for the device and has full access, instead of the more limited browser. > Likewise, why is a world where most people learn JavaScript any better or worse than a world where most people learn Swift? It's better if one language doesn't completely dominate the application space. Same issue when Java was all the hotness, and people thought everything was going to run on the JVM.
  - cromwellian 5y ago
    What do you mean by full access? Native apps on platforms like iOS and Android run within containers that present a narrowed view of the full platform. If you take a “native” library like QT or wXWindows or even OpenGL do you have “full access”? Any cross platform abstraction or portability layer will remove power and access. Do we really want to argue for a world where all software is written as if the target is a game console to the metal, even when 90% of apps don’t need it?

open-source-ux 5y ago

Is this something to be worried about? Yes. But it is mostly too late to doing anything. The move to the browser has been happening for years. As an example, look at ChromesOS - a cloud operating system (OS) that tracks and records all your activity the moment you sign in. A Google account is required to use the full functionality of the OS. It is used by millions of schoolkids with all the privacy implications that entails. Somehow, Google's promise to never build profiles of their school users is enough to placate developers. In fact, developers are more likely to defend Google rather than question or scrutinise the privacy implications of using a cloud OS. Google must be gleeful they've captured a whole generation of US kids to use Google services through the ubiquity of ChromeOS in US schools. And without any dissenting views from developers on the matter either.