3 ms·

I don't understand how this is materially better than Tauri (more generally, frameworks that bind to the platform webview). At least with the platform webview,

I don't understand how this is materially better than Tauri (more generally, frameworks that bind to the platform webview). At least with the platform webview, you can: 1. Have some knowledge about what engine versions were available on what OS versions and make compatibility decisions accordingly. 2. Know that the browser engine is always there. When it comes to trade-offs between "static linking" (Electron) and "dynamic linking" (Tauri), this is like cowboy linking. You have literally no idea what browser will open. I guess this isn't materially different from a remotely hosted backend but I still wonder of the merits. And why communicate over a websocket, or not have a custom protocol that you can handle and register with the OS more easily? I like the general idea but this seems inferior to a webview in almost every way. I do see how you might get things like extensions easier, but I'd rather petition the platforms to add extension support and close other gaps directly in their webview runtimes. And is it just localhost under the hood? If so it reminds me of this Zoom security debacle a few years ago: https://archive.ph/3fxFS https://archive.ph/3fxFS

thisislife2 3y ago
Since I had a similar idea to build something like this, here's my opinion of the pros of this concept: 1. We web developers should always be building to a common specification, and not to the quirks of a particular web engine (which now includes webview quirks too). 2. Javascript is a shitty language. There are other better languages for application development, which allow you harness the full power of the OS platform. 3. It's more in line with unix philosophy - Write programs that do one thing and do it well, write programs to work together and write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface. 4. If an application is built with point 3 in mind, a lot of old codes can be reused and / or given a new UI with this concept. 5. Really tiny as it doesn't increase the size of the application code base by much.

thisislife2 3y ago

Since I had a similar idea to build something like this, here's my opinion of the pros of this concept: 1. We web developers should always be building to a common specification, and not to the quirks of a particular web engine (which now includes webview quirks too). 2. Javascript is a shitty language. There are other better languages for application development, which allow you harness the full power of the OS platform. 3. It's more in line with unix philosophy - Write programs that do one thing and do it well, write programs to work together and write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface. 4. If an application is built with point 3 in mind, a lot of old codes can be reused and / or given a new UI with this concept. 5. Really tiny as it doesn't increase the size of the application code base by much.