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The author is correct but not for that farcical reason. Here's some real ones. It encourages the following: A URL that is now less Universal than ever, pointin

The author is correct but not for that farcical reason. Here's some real ones. It encourages the following: A URL that is now less Universal than ever, pointing to an application more than a piece of content Content that is not self contained in a single document so it is hard to archive for the future Content that is not served with the page nor containing a universal reference so it is hard to scrape and catalog A profound inability to inspect websites because they are now transpiled via frameworks and emit something obtuse and only machine, not human readable Content that is now in a non-generalized method of access so instrumenting it to fit it for different purposes (the "Free" part of "information is meant to be free") is now fragile and dubious And more controversial: The careful separation of concerns of the Javascript (Controller), HTML (Model), and CSS (View) gets tossed together and entangled in a single stream of hybrid languages where they no longer are separated. Instead people rely on less rigorously made tools to achieve the same ends with increased difficulty, less reliability, and less functionality - all cost and no benefit.

threatofrain 5y ago
> A profound inability to inspect websites because they are now transpiled via frameworks and emit something obtuse and only machine, not human readable IMO, the setting where open source communities are likely to grow is the right place to share code. This is also the setting where code is most likely to be understood, as understanding a codebase is very hard. Sharing code is not just a matter of dumping original source code to the public, and I think the use case around ordinary users examining source code is very, very niche. And how should compiled-language communities like Rust handle the issue of sharing code? Should they distribute the original source code with the expectation that their users shall compile on their end? Is that the right way to share code, or is that just dumping code to the public?
- hattmall 5y ago
  I don't think it's ordinary users examining the code. The issue is develops figuring out bugs in their own projects. You try to trace why one thing isn't working and after many hours of digging through things in developer tools you realize two or more of the massive JS libraries someone needed to import for a single function doesn't work with another in a specific use case. This is like 80% of my time and rarely does the person who decided to import the library have any in depth knowledge of it's working. Fairly basic websites today are importing hundreds of thousands of lines of unnecessary code to achieve rather basic functionality.
- kristopolous 5y ago
  The argument comes more from the RMS argument of distrust; people should have the liberty to inspect the mechanics of the systems they wish to use in a way that isn't willfully obstructed. Yes, there's holes in that argument (you don't get to inspect the server side code for instance), but it's a statement from principle. The web was intended to be an open platform in that "I'm free to inspect and repurpose within reason" kind of way. The radical philosophy and promise of the web and open source has been sublimated and replaced with a cynical variation, a form of elite pirate capitalism. If "we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us." and we want to go back to the virtues of the open society and dismantle the panopticon of personal data the web has become, then this is the wrong way to construct the cyber-buildings of tomorrow.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Swizec 5y ago
As someone working on an actual webapp ... eh it's much smaller than an equivalent iOS or Android app would be. Total transfer size around 5MB. Links to individual pages would be useless to archive because they're not documents. Kinda like "Why would you bookmark a individual app window?" You can scrape us with a browser, but why would you? You can right click inspect or use react devtools, which is nice if you're trying to understand things. That part is way more accessible than an equivalent iOS, Android, or Desktop app would be. Oh and we don't need to build an iOS, Android, and Desktop app! It's a single webapp that works in any client of your choosing. Plus you get fresh updates and bugfixes with every page load, no delayed update cycle. This may be controversial if you dislike a UX change we make.

threatofrain 5y ago

> A profound inability to inspect websites because they are now transpiled via frameworks and emit something obtuse and only machine, not human readable IMO, the setting where open source communities are likely to grow is the right place to share code. This is also the setting where code is most likely to be understood, as understanding a codebase is very hard. Sharing code is not just a matter of dumping original source code to the public, and I think the use case around ordinary users examining source code is very, very niche. And how should compiled-language communities like Rust handle the issue of sharing code? Should they distribute the original source code with the expectation that their users shall compile on their end? Is that the right way to share code, or is that just dumping code to the public?

hattmall 5y ago
I don't think it's ordinary users examining the code. The issue is develops figuring out bugs in their own projects. You try to trace why one thing isn't working and after many hours of digging through things in developer tools you realize two or more of the massive JS libraries someone needed to import for a single function doesn't work with another in a specific use case. This is like 80% of my time and rarely does the person who decided to import the library have any in depth knowledge of it's working. Fairly basic websites today are importing hundreds of thousands of lines of unnecessary code to achieve rather basic functionality.
kristopolous 5y ago
The argument comes more from the RMS argument of distrust; people should have the liberty to inspect the mechanics of the systems they wish to use in a way that isn't willfully obstructed. Yes, there's holes in that argument (you don't get to inspect the server side code for instance), but it's a statement from principle. The web was intended to be an open platform in that "I'm free to inspect and repurpose within reason" kind of way. The radical philosophy and promise of the web and open source has been sublimated and replaced with a cynical variation, a form of elite pirate capitalism. If "we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us." and we want to go back to the virtues of the open society and dismantle the panopticon of personal data the web has become, then this is the wrong way to construct the cyber-buildings of tomorrow.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Swizec 5y ago

As someone working on an actual webapp ... eh it's much smaller than an equivalent iOS or Android app would be. Total transfer size around 5MB. Links to individual pages would be useless to archive because they're not documents. Kinda like "Why would you bookmark a individual app window?" You can scrape us with a browser, but why would you? You can right click inspect or use react devtools, which is nice if you're trying to understand things. That part is way more accessible than an equivalent iOS, Android, or Desktop app would be. Oh and we don't need to build an iOS, Android, and Desktop app! It's a single webapp that works in any client of your choosing. Plus you get fresh updates and bugfixes with every page load, no delayed update cycle. This may be controversial if you dislike a UX change we make.