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Agree. The other thing I'd add is that we're long overdue for a more fundamental paradigm shift in webdev. That is, we've changed our goal from the original pa

Agree. The other thing I'd add is that we're long overdue for a more fundamental paradigm shift in webdev. That is, we've changed our goal from the original page request/response model to one of delivering native-like SPA experiences. But, the frameworks that win don't fundamentally reconsider the old technology. Instead, they stop at the DOM layer, speak heavy HTML/CSS, make us manage browser mechanics like URLs, history and back buttons, and help us to better manage those old Web constructs while keeping them in focus. So, they've added these abstraction layers that just keep piling up. At some point we have to ask whether this is fundamentally the right approach.

jcelerier 5y ago
Check out Canonic https://www.canonic.com/ https://www.canonic.com/ for an experimental take on an alternative web
- projektfu 5y ago
  Was that supposed to do something other than show half a page and not respond to clicks and scrolls? iOS 15 on iPhone SE 2.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    Indeed… double digit seconds to load and then it isn’t responsive and doesn’t respond to touch events. A bit under baked, to say the least
  - csande17 5y ago
    On my MacBook, canonic.com displays a few sentences of text and a few links. To do this, it takes 15 seconds to load a 25 megabyte WASM payload. The resulting page draws all of its content onto a <canvas>, scrolls backwards because it somehow ignores my system's "natural scroll direction" setting, and doesn't let me right-click to open links in a new tab. In other words, it's a demo of what Web performance and usability will be like ten years from now. Twitter and Reddit are already working on redesigning their websites to incorporate this new technology. (In all seriousness, it's a demo of a subset of Qt compiled to run in a web browser, and it seems to work better on desktop.)
    - projektfu 5y ago
      OK, I reloaded it in Brave on Ubuntu and it had the features you mentioned. I suppose it's interesting but it's unclear what path there is to making it the standard that replaces the standard.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Great. Someone reinvented flash, except the plugin is dowloaded and compiled in-page every time instead of installed traditionally. Even better! All those shitty restaurant web sites that were forced to become almost useful when flash went away, can rejoice and go back to being as awful as they were.
  - jcelerier 5y ago
    No, the end goal is to have an entirely separate browser which browses a web built with QML instead of html / js / css ; since Qt compiles to WASM it's a simple way to try it but the actual thing exists as a standalone desktop app: https://github.com/canonic/canonic https://github.com/canonic/canonic
nine_k 5y ago
Ah, yes: Flash, Dart, game engines. Great graphics, often great performance. Also, trouble with spell-checking, copy-paste, even selecting text. Often hard to make the layout responsive. Reading mode, screen readers need not remind of their existence. Hypertext links into that are also problematic. It would be nice to be able to create a new, different platform for hypermedia documents right inside the legacy browser platform from 1996. Sadly, it's not yet there.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  >Flash, Dart, game engines. Hopefully, those aren't the only possibilities. >new, different platform for hypermedia documents right inside the legacy browser I believe there are use cases for which we need to chose between documents and applications.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    I'd love to hear about other possibilities. This space is currently heating up, for the reasons discussed here. Currently when people choose it to be an application, it's usually a React / Angular / Svelte application. Purpose-built tools fulfilling their purpose.
    - unclebucknasty 5y ago
      >I'd love to hear about other possibilities. Me too! I've written about this on HN more than once and bore myself with it at this point, but the short version is that I'd like to see more alternative approaches that effectively abstract away Web idioms altogether. React, etc. code could be compiler output, not the code in which we think or write.

jcelerier 5y ago

Check out Canonic https://www.canonic.com/ https://www.canonic.com/ for an experimental take on an alternative web

projektfu 5y ago
Was that supposed to do something other than show half a page and not respond to clicks and scrolls? iOS 15 on iPhone SE 2.
- nawgz 5y ago
  Indeed… double digit seconds to load and then it isn’t responsive and doesn’t respond to touch events. A bit under baked, to say the least
- csande17 5y ago
  On my MacBook, canonic.com displays a few sentences of text and a few links. To do this, it takes 15 seconds to load a 25 megabyte WASM payload. The resulting page draws all of its content onto a <canvas>, scrolls backwards because it somehow ignores my system's "natural scroll direction" setting, and doesn't let me right-click to open links in a new tab. In other words, it's a demo of what Web performance and usability will be like ten years from now. Twitter and Reddit are already working on redesigning their websites to incorporate this new technology. (In all seriousness, it's a demo of a subset of Qt compiled to run in a web browser, and it seems to work better on desktop.)
  - projektfu 5y ago
    OK, I reloaded it in Brave on Ubuntu and it had the features you mentioned. I suppose it's interesting but it's unclear what path there is to making it the standard that replaces the standard.
Brian_K_White 5y ago
Great. Someone reinvented flash, except the plugin is dowloaded and compiled in-page every time instead of installed traditionally. Even better! All those shitty restaurant web sites that were forced to become almost useful when flash went away, can rejoice and go back to being as awful as they were.
- jcelerier 5y ago
  No, the end goal is to have an entirely separate browser which browses a web built with QML instead of html / js / css ; since Qt compiles to WASM it's a simple way to try it but the actual thing exists as a standalone desktop app: https://github.com/canonic/canonic https://github.com/canonic/canonic

nine_k 5y ago

Ah, yes: Flash, Dart, game engines. Great graphics, often great performance. Also, trouble with spell-checking, copy-paste, even selecting text. Often hard to make the layout responsive. Reading mode, screen readers need not remind of their existence. Hypertext links into that are also problematic. It would be nice to be able to create a new, different platform for hypermedia documents right inside the legacy browser platform from 1996. Sadly, it's not yet there.

unclebucknasty 5y ago
>Flash, Dart, game engines. Hopefully, those aren't the only possibilities. >new, different platform for hypermedia documents right inside the legacy browser I believe there are use cases for which we need to chose between documents and applications.
- nine_k 5y ago
  I'd love to hear about other possibilities. This space is currently heating up, for the reasons discussed here. Currently when people choose it to be an application, it's usually a React / Angular / Svelte application. Purpose-built tools fulfilling their purpose.
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    >I'd love to hear about other possibilities. Me too! I've written about this on HN more than once and bore myself with it at this point, but the short version is that I'd like to see more alternative approaches that effectively abstract away Web idioms altogether. React, etc. code could be compiler output, not the code in which we think or write.