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I’d say that Flutter[1] probably meets that same definition today of cross platform development and tooling in a much slicker way. [1] https://flutter.dev/ htt

by mhoad 5y ago

I’d say that Flutter[1] probably meets that same definition today of cross platform development and tooling in a much slicker way. [1] https://flutter.dev/ https://flutter.dev/

KronisLV 5y ago
I'm afraid that i can't agree there, because of how it was implemented. Flutter is plain hostile from certain standpoints: in the browser, it does use canvas for rendering and therefore denies any ability to learn about how a particular site was developed (how many of today's devs have benefited from "Inspect Element"?). Not only that, but it also breaks much of browser functionality, such as right clicking, selecting text, using plugins that manipulate the DOM, user styles, and historically even screen readers (though they're getting better at that last bit recently). Just have a look here: https://gallery.flutter.dev https://gallery.flutter.dev Open the Reply app, open a message, try copying the contents. Try seeing how the block with the sender information has been formatted. Pretend that Taxes folder is spam instead (e.g. an ad, or a flashing element that could cause you seizures), try blocking it with uBlock Origin or a similar plugin. I agree that technically it fits the criteria that you're describing, but it fails on certain platforms (the web) in my eyes due to all of the shortcomings and how badly it implements this platform support. Use it for native apps? Sure, i guess...
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Fire dances of celebration where thrown around the lands with the demise of Flash, ActiveX, Silverlight, Java Applets and all others that followed the same cursed path, yet the powers of be down at the druid dungeons came up with WebGL/WebAssembly, thus the natural order was eventually restored and everything old was new again.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    > WebGL/WebAssembly You know, it's kind of unfortunate, because the actual tech is nice and has lots of potential. I mean, WebGL is great for online games (even if many will suggest that it's not quite as easy to work with as Flash was) and other interactive content, like visualizations etc. Whereas WASM has the potential to make high performance code in the browser a reality, especially for the aforementioned physics simulations, or curious usecases of tech such as having access to Python or .NET in the browser environment, which remain sandboxed at the same time. The ability to do this feels really interesting, as do Web Workers being a thing (even though maybe JS should have had proper threading support and support for joining threads from day one instead). It's just that the way these technologies are used can end up a bit misdirected or sometimes outright malicious, something that we'd possibly get in other forms without this (just look at how evil ad industry sometimes is and how unethical many of the ads have historically been).
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Too late, the train has departed already, https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-Canvas-Based-Rendering-Update.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-...
      - rektide 5y ago
        Watching Google leading the transition, of the web from a hypertextual, common, extension-able user-agency-embue-ing medium, into an unmalleable, hard, pushing-pixels-in-our-faces application is one of the most evil malignant acts I can imagine being perpetrated against good upstanding tech society has. This is such a huge step into the dark, out of the sun, for the world wide web.
        pjmlp 5y ago
        It is called ChromeOS nowadays, thanks to everyone that helped Chrome achieve its hegemony (Electron also counts).
- mhoad 5y ago
  I think to be fair to Flutter their entire concept of web support is literally months old at this point outside of beta, it obviously has a long road ahead of it to become more web native. At the same time, I think that we need to start thinking about what web apps can and should look like strictly outside the context of just the DOM. It's not clear that it is really going to be the right tool for the job moving forward for more complicated applications. For example Google Docs is moving (has moved?) entirely to canvas based rendering for performance and flexibility reasons. Technologies like WASM, canvas, WebGPU and HTTP3 means that the list of available options is about to change rather dramatically in the next few years I think. These new approaches are going to require new solutions not just for the use cases you outlined but also things like just general accessibility. I've had a chance to look at what the Flutter team are doing on that front and I think it would be safe to say that they aren't in anyway unaware of where things fall short currently but have public plans already in various stages of implementation to address them. Not asking anyone to drink to kool-aid just yet but I feel good about their plans to play catch up over the next couple of years. I could easily see it becoming a very sensible default option for app development before too long.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    I have no interest of being fair to Flutter. Flutter is just another proof that for Google as an organization[1] being nice, open and friendly was just a trick that lasted as long as it was useful for Google. [1]: I think the majority of people there are nice, there is just some dynamic that drives them to become dumb[2], manipulative[3] and destructive[4] when they operate together ;-) [2]: still haven't managed to fix search a decade after they broke it. [3]: censorship etc [4]: destroying their own products, companies they buy, and even entire markets (like web browsers) Edit: I don't hate Google, neither as an organization and definitely not as individuals but I really really really wish Googlers could get their act together and start being Google again because they behave as a small child with super powers or something :-/
    - ternaryoperator 5y ago
      > I really really really wish Googlers could get their act together and start being Google again Google has always abandoned projects suddenly--even in the era you're describing.

by mhoad 5y ago

I’d say that Flutter[1] probably meets that same definition today of cross platform development and tooling in a much slicker way. [1] https://flutter.dev/ https://flutter.dev/

KronisLV 5y ago

I'm afraid that i can't agree there, because of how it was implemented. Flutter is plain hostile from certain standpoints: in the browser, it does use canvas for rendering and therefore denies any ability to learn about how a particular site was developed (how many of today's devs have benefited from "Inspect Element"?). Not only that, but it also breaks much of browser functionality, such as right clicking, selecting text, using plugins that manipulate the DOM, user styles, and historically even screen readers (though they're getting better at that last bit recently). Just have a look here: https://gallery.flutter.dev https://gallery.flutter.dev Open the Reply app, open a message, try copying the contents. Try seeing how the block with the sender information has been formatted. Pretend that Taxes folder is spam instead (e.g. an ad, or a flashing element that could cause you seizures), try blocking it with uBlock Origin or a similar plugin. I agree that technically it fits the criteria that you're describing, but it fails on certain platforms (the web) in my eyes due to all of the shortcomings and how badly it implements this platform support. Use it for native apps? Sure, i guess...

pjmlp 5y ago
Fire dances of celebration where thrown around the lands with the demise of Flash, ActiveX, Silverlight, Java Applets and all others that followed the same cursed path, yet the powers of be down at the druid dungeons came up with WebGL/WebAssembly, thus the natural order was eventually restored and everything old was new again.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > WebGL/WebAssembly You know, it's kind of unfortunate, because the actual tech is nice and has lots of potential. I mean, WebGL is great for online games (even if many will suggest that it's not quite as easy to work with as Flash was) and other interactive content, like visualizations etc. Whereas WASM has the potential to make high performance code in the browser a reality, especially for the aforementioned physics simulations, or curious usecases of tech such as having access to Python or .NET in the browser environment, which remain sandboxed at the same time. The ability to do this feels really interesting, as do Web Workers being a thing (even though maybe JS should have had proper threading support and support for joining threads from day one instead). It's just that the way these technologies are used can end up a bit misdirected or sometimes outright malicious, something that we'd possibly get in other forms without this (just look at how evil ad industry sometimes is and how unethical many of the ads have historically been).
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Too late, the train has departed already, https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-Canvas-Based-Rendering-Update.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-...
    - rektide 5y ago
      Watching Google leading the transition, of the web from a hypertextual, common, extension-able user-agency-embue-ing medium, into an unmalleable, hard, pushing-pixels-in-our-faces application is one of the most evil malignant acts I can imagine being perpetrated against good upstanding tech society has. This is such a huge step into the dark, out of the sun, for the world wide web.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        It is called ChromeOS nowadays, thanks to everyone that helped Chrome achieve its hegemony (Electron also counts).
mhoad 5y ago
I think to be fair to Flutter their entire concept of web support is literally months old at this point outside of beta, it obviously has a long road ahead of it to become more web native. At the same time, I think that we need to start thinking about what web apps can and should look like strictly outside the context of just the DOM. It's not clear that it is really going to be the right tool for the job moving forward for more complicated applications. For example Google Docs is moving (has moved?) entirely to canvas based rendering for performance and flexibility reasons. Technologies like WASM, canvas, WebGPU and HTTP3 means that the list of available options is about to change rather dramatically in the next few years I think. These new approaches are going to require new solutions not just for the use cases you outlined but also things like just general accessibility. I've had a chance to look at what the Flutter team are doing on that front and I think it would be safe to say that they aren't in anyway unaware of where things fall short currently but have public plans already in various stages of implementation to address them. Not asking anyone to drink to kool-aid just yet but I feel good about their plans to play catch up over the next couple of years. I could easily see it becoming a very sensible default option for app development before too long.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  I have no interest of being fair to Flutter. Flutter is just another proof that for Google as an organization[1] being nice, open and friendly was just a trick that lasted as long as it was useful for Google. [1]: I think the majority of people there are nice, there is just some dynamic that drives them to become dumb[2], manipulative[3] and destructive[4] when they operate together ;-) [2]: still haven't managed to fix search a decade after they broke it. [3]: censorship etc [4]: destroying their own products, companies they buy, and even entire markets (like web browsers) Edit: I don't hate Google, neither as an organization and definitely not as individuals but I really really really wish Googlers could get their act together and start being Google again because they behave as a small child with super powers or something :-/
  - ternaryoperator 5y ago
    > I really really really wish Googlers could get their act together and start being Google again Google has always abandoned projects suddenly--even in the era you're describing.