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> App vs document is a false dichotomy. Could you support this with arguments?

by divan 4y ago

morsch 4y ago
There are websites that are very much like an app, like Gmail or Slack. 20 years ago, most people used standalone applications for these. Other websites are not app-like at all: Wikipedia articles, blogs like substack, API documentation; these are documents. And they still make up a significant portion of my browsing -- so yes, my browser is still a hypertext viewer. YMMV, like I said, maybe you mostly have apps open; I don't. And many websites are in-between: project management tools like JIRA and shopping websites like Amazon are document-based (tickets, product pages), but offer actions on top of those documents, like an app would have. They also have external links like, you know, hypertext. And the latter is true for even the app-iest of apps, which makes it useful to have them in the browser (for the same reason, some desktop apps end up embedding browsers). And conversely, even the document websites have actions that are more or less central to the experience, e.g. Wikipedia has editing, blogs have comments. So there isn't a clear line between app and document, that's a false dichotomy.
- divan 4y ago
  Thank you, but I have to disagree here. Yes, it's true that sometimes the line between document and app is blurred. But I would argue it's blurred exactly because we use things designed for document to make apps. Take "links" for example. In web apps, practically every action item is a "link" - either a "<a href=" or <button " that opens another link. But it's not because these things are links - it's because there is no other option to do it without links. If all is you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. In a normal app (made in a UI framework designed for that, and not in hypertext engine), instead of links you would use events or function calls or some similar concept. Likewise, "external" links. You can open external links from normal apps. You don't need to make app a HTML page for that. So it's not a false dichotomy. If you have ever used desktop/tablet/mobile apps that have blog/comments functionality, you unlikely to think about those screens and functionality "as a document". No, it's just another screen of the app, that renders pixels and handles user input. You only think about it as a document when everything you have is "HTML documents".
  - morsch 4y ago
    I totally think that slate star codex blog post I read is a document, even though there is an app-like comment function I don't use. And I totally think Wikipedia is a bunch of documents, even though there is an app-like edit functionality that I rarely access. And I totally think Google is a service for (among other things) looking up recipes, which I think are documents, even though they sometimes have an app-like button to re-calculate serving size. On the flipside, I think Whatsapp Web is an app and not a document, even though I know that it's implemented in what was traditionally a document framework.
    - divan 4y ago
      Wikipedia is definitely a good example of interlinked documents, indeed. Blog is probably too (editing blog is entirely different process, though, and needs an app — you wouldn’t call Adobe Acrobat “a document” ) What I’m trying to say that it’s hard to draw the line between documents and apps if all you have is a tabbed document viewer and you forced to build apps on a document typesetting engine.

> App vs document is a false dichotomy. Could you support this with arguments?

by divan 4y ago

> App vs document is a false dichotomy. Could you support this with arguments?

There are websites that are very much like an app, like Gmail or Slack. 20 years ago, most people used standalone applications for these. Other websites are not app-like at all: Wikipedia articles, blogs like substack, API documentation; these are documents. And they still make up a significant portion of my browsing -- so yes, my browser is still a hypertext viewer. YMMV, like I said, maybe you mostly have apps open; I don't. And many websites are in-between: project management tools like JIRA and shopping websites like Amazon are document-based (tickets, product pages), but offer actions on top of those documents, like an app would have. They also have external links like, you know, hypertext. And the latter is true for even the app-iest of apps, which makes it useful to have them in the browser (for the same reason, some desktop apps end up embedding browsers). And conversely, even the document websites have actions that are more or less central to the experience, e.g. Wikipedia has editing, blogs have comments. So there isn't a clear line between app and document, that's a false dichotomy.

divan 4y ago
Thank you, but I have to disagree here. Yes, it's true that sometimes the line between document and app is blurred. But I would argue it's blurred exactly because we use things designed for document to make apps. Take "links" for example. In web apps, practically every action item is a "link" - either a "<a href=" or <button " that opens another link. But it's not because these things are links - it's because there is no other option to do it without links. If all is you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. In a normal app (made in a UI framework designed for that, and not in hypertext engine), instead of links you would use events or function calls or some similar concept. Likewise, "external" links. You can open external links from normal apps. You don't need to make app a HTML page for that. So it's not a false dichotomy. If you have ever used desktop/tablet/mobile apps that have blog/comments functionality, you unlikely to think about those screens and functionality "as a document". No, it's just another screen of the app, that renders pixels and handles user input. You only think about it as a document when everything you have is "HTML documents".
- morsch 4y ago
  I totally think that slate star codex blog post I read is a document, even though there is an app-like comment function I don't use. And I totally think Wikipedia is a bunch of documents, even though there is an app-like edit functionality that I rarely access. And I totally think Google is a service for (among other things) looking up recipes, which I think are documents, even though they sometimes have an app-like button to re-calculate serving size. On the flipside, I think Whatsapp Web is an app and not a document, even though I know that it's implemented in what was traditionally a document framework.
  - divan 4y ago
    Wikipedia is definitely a good example of interlinked documents, indeed. Blog is probably too (editing blog is entirely different process, though, and needs an app — you wouldn’t call Adobe Acrobat “a document” ) What I’m trying to say that it’s hard to draw the line between documents and apps if all you have is a tabbed document viewer and you forced to build apps on a document typesetting engine.