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I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, but there are many great web apps, or not? Google Maps, Docs, Sheets and Slides - they all kind of work without being sup

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, but there are many great web apps, or not? Google Maps, Docs, Sheets and Slides - they all kind of work without being super horrible? It's not like most desktop apps are these great beacons of perfection either, most desktop apps are just as bad as most web apps. Just think of all the ridiculous enterprise applications that people had work with in the past. And the same applies to mobile apps from the respective app stores. Also since a lot of the applications that you HAVE to use on a daily basis have moved to the web, you might have this feeling that desktop applications are great because the only exposure you have are applications that you choose to install yourself. But if all these apps were desktop applications you might have a different opinion.

divan 4y ago
Good points. But I'm not saying that all web apps are horrible. My point is it takes enourmously more effort, time and money to make web app that doesn't suck (compared to non-web alternatives). Google can afford this, for sure. Likewise the desktop apps – there are quite a lot of horrible apps, for sure, but competition usually drives the quality up (I mean competition for the better frameworks and/or languages). Nobody uses Tcl/Tk anymore. Naturally in monopilized markets, enterprise software faces no competition and usually sucks.
divan 4y ago
Sorry for unsolicited continuation of the thread, bu I was just typing a comment into StackOverflow box, and zoomed the page a bit (with pinch zoom). Page now shifts itself to the bottom and right on every keypress. Can't imagine seeing weird stuff like that on any desktop app, and yet, for the web apps bugs like this are just normal. We blame developers ("..didn't use this media query api properly..") and ourselves ("oh, it's because the zoom.."), but that the crux of the problem – you have to spend time and efforts to stop these leaking bugs from foundation layer.

divan 4y ago

Good points. But I'm not saying that all web apps are horrible. My point is it takes enourmously more effort, time and money to make web app that doesn't suck (compared to non-web alternatives). Google can afford this, for sure. Likewise the desktop apps – there are quite a lot of horrible apps, for sure, but competition usually drives the quality up (I mean competition for the better frameworks and/or languages). Nobody uses Tcl/Tk anymore. Naturally in monopilized markets, enterprise software faces no competition and usually sucks.

divan 4y ago

Sorry for unsolicited continuation of the thread, bu I was just typing a comment into StackOverflow box, and zoomed the page a bit (with pinch zoom). Page now shifts itself to the bottom and right on every keypress. Can't imagine seeing weird stuff like that on any desktop app, and yet, for the web apps bugs like this are just normal. We blame developers ("..didn't use this media query api properly..") and ourselves ("oh, it's because the zoom.."), but that the crux of the problem – you have to spend time and efforts to stop these leaking bugs from foundation layer.