3 ms·

Fewer gatekeepers, more users, lower development costs, tighter feedback loops.

• mikewarot 5y ago
  >Fewer gatekeepers, lower development costs, tighter feedback loops. There are far more gatekeepers when you've got an application spread across the internet. The ISP or Cloud providers can lock you out, you can lose your certificate, DNS, connectivity. The browser, ad-blocker, or a random change to java/javascript, etc can change your results. Governments of all levels, along with their spy agencies, and large profit driven corporations can intervein between your code and the end user. A cable could get cut, or WiFi go down, a Telco or Apple or Google could decide your "app" isn't in their interest. >more users - I agree, but they're used to "free", and aren't always the customer. >lower development costs How is having an "app" that works through all the above simpler than a program installed (or just thrown into a folder, and run as a "portable" program) not far easier to support? You can write to the screen almost directly, and probe files/folders in the same way, with no gatekeepers. >tighter feedback loops. Since you can't run it on your desktop and be confident, you have to test across all your users, or a wide swath of output devices, browsers, OSs, etc.
  • epc 5y ago
    All of those are absolutely potential roadblocks and yet, somehow, web applications displaced desktop applications as the preferred user experience. Purity does not always win out over utility. I don’t particularly miss having to decipher which version of MSCVRT.DLL I need for which Windows app.