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Well, now that you mention it... SGML/HTML/XML/CSS/JS have the true open standard good side instead of anticompetitive proprietary grip. But let's not fool our

by alecco 15y ago

Well, now that you mention it... SGML/HTML/XML/CSS/JS have the true open standard good side instead of anticompetitive proprietary grip. But let's not fool ourselves, those languages are terrible and backwards. Same with HTTP. Also HTML5 still falls short of many missing features on the web. I'm hoping for a new generation of a better set of languages to take over. But this feels like hoping for x86 to go obsolete, even Intel couldn't kill it.

pnathan 15y ago
Yes, the clientside web stack needs to be obseleted as well. I hope that someday the farting around with compile-to-js stops and we get a true bytecode VM-in-browser.
- pornel 15y ago
  We had true bytecode in the browser already, it was called Java. VM isn't necessarily going to make things better. JS execution speed increased by orders of magnitude (it's getting close to decoding H.264 in real time!) It's more likely that ES6 and future versions will make JS more palatable and easier to optimize. Currently it's the DOM that needs work: it's full of messy, needlessly complicated C++-derived interfaces and DOM speed didn't get as much love as the raw JS.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    Currently it's the DOM that needs work: it's full of messy, needlessly complicated C++-derived interfaces and DOM speed didn't get as much love as the raw JS. What I'd like to see is a layer of abstraction somewhere between canvas/SVG and the DOM: you have mostly-rectangular objects, with Swing- and Qt-style layout managers used to specify their positions. The container object's CSS specifies the layout used to arrange its children. It would need to be possible to write custom layout managers in JavaScript. Then you could write a layout manager that evenly spaces its items around a circle (or any other arbitrary path), for example.
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      So apparently people are highly opposed to the idea? What would be a better alternative for creating and laying out web apps without the overhead of the full document object model?
  - pnathan 15y ago
    Java in the browser has been a horrible experience since the 90s until now. I suspect part of that is the fact that it is always a non-native plugin and has an excruciating load time. A bytecode VM would allow things like Coffeescript to run without the JS interlayer. My larger point is that Javascript as a language is atrocious, along with SGML derivatives, along with CSS. The web stack is a polished turd that has been pretzeled far past the initial design. While HTML and CSS are not very straightforward to 'fix' today, starting with a bytecode-based execution model will allow some revolution instead of incremental JS improvements.

by alecco 15y ago

pnathan 15y ago

Yes, the clientside web stack needs to be obseleted as well. I hope that someday the farting around with compile-to-js stops and we get a true bytecode VM-in-browser.

pornel 15y ago
We had true bytecode in the browser already, it was called Java. VM isn't necessarily going to make things better. JS execution speed increased by orders of magnitude (it's getting close to decoding H.264 in real time!) It's more likely that ES6 and future versions will make JS more palatable and easier to optimize. Currently it's the DOM that needs work: it's full of messy, needlessly complicated C++-derived interfaces and DOM speed didn't get as much love as the raw JS.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Currently it's the DOM that needs work: it's full of messy, needlessly complicated C++-derived interfaces and DOM speed didn't get as much love as the raw JS. What I'd like to see is a layer of abstraction somewhere between canvas/SVG and the DOM: you have mostly-rectangular objects, with Swing- and Qt-style layout managers used to specify their positions. The container object's CSS specifies the layout used to arrange its children. It would need to be possible to write custom layout managers in JavaScript. Then you could write a layout manager that evenly spaces its items around a circle (or any other arbitrary path), for example.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    So apparently people are highly opposed to the idea? What would be a better alternative for creating and laying out web apps without the overhead of the full document object model?
- pnathan 15y ago
  Java in the browser has been a horrible experience since the 90s until now. I suspect part of that is the fact that it is always a non-native plugin and has an excruciating load time. A bytecode VM would allow things like Coffeescript to run without the JS interlayer. My larger point is that Javascript as a language is atrocious, along with SGML derivatives, along with CSS. The web stack is a polished turd that has been pretzeled far past the initial design. While HTML and CSS are not very straightforward to 'fix' today, starting with a bytecode-based execution model will allow some revolution instead of incremental JS improvements.