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I agree, Id almost love to see a "For All Mankind"-esque show about it - an alternative history where browsers ran on lisp. I could imagine that there would hav

I agree, Id almost love to see a "For All Mankind"-esque show about it - an alternative history where browsers ran on lisp. I could imagine that there would have been so many things that would be wildly different - not the least of which node and typescript being around at all, much less some of the most popular languages available. I think the web and browsers for it was going to bring whatever language it chose to the forefront, no matter what it was. Back then I would have written anything - we certainly were not _choosing_ javascript!

inopinatus 3y ago
Three decades ago I was similarly overjoyed to discover that Scheme was finally going to have a useful application beyond illustrating SICP and writing koans to amuse myself, because DSSSL was on the cusp of evolving into the last document styling language anyone would ever need. Unfortunately following an incident with a broken Lisp machine, a liquid lunch, and an unlicensed particle accelerator, I became trapped in a parallel universe where the HTML ERB anointed CSS by mistake during a drunken night out in Oslo. The fundamental concept of CSS (best revealed by H.W.Lie's thesis IMO¹) was to create a rich and versatile and non-Turing-complete set of structural selectors in lieu of DSSSL's recursive logic, and to allow styles to overlay one another; two design choices that only by the application of gallons of irony can explain why most web pages are composed of a bunch of nested DIV elements with hashed IDs, overburdened class attributes, and assets compiled into static files. [1] https://www.wiumlie.no/2006/phd/css.pdf https://www.wiumlie.no/2006/phd/css.pdf
- antod 3y ago
  > Unfortunately following an incident with a broken Lisp machine, a liquid lunch, and an unlicensed particle accelerator, I became trapped in a parallel universe where the HTML ERB anointed CSS by mistake during a drunken night out in Oslo. Mostly though you're upset because respectable computer scientists didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.
- toyg 3y ago
  CSS is a classic case of road to hell paved by good intentions. "We'll have one style for the browser and one for printing!" - but turns out that nobody really gives a crap about printing, and when they do they want stuff printed exactly like it looks on screen. "Forget tables, we'll have stuff floating around the screen!" - but turns out that there are more requirements for positioning rules that can be contained in anyone's philosophy. Etc etc...
taejavu 3y ago
You might enjoy this talk by Dylan Beattie, it explores that kind of alternate history. “The Web That Never Was”: https://youtu.be/8JOD1AQGqEg https://youtu.be/8JOD1AQGqEg
- netcraft 3y ago
  only about 10 minutes in, but it looks like exactly the kind of thing I will enjoy. Thank you!
tzs 3y ago
> I agree, Id almost love to see a "For All Mankind"-esque show about it - an alternative history where browsers ran on lisp I've thought about something similar, but for hardware--what if some early hardware design choices had went in a different way? For example consider cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. A different choice by the CRT pioneers and we might have ended up with CRTs that scan outward in a spiral from the center, instead of scanning in a series of stacked left to right rows. That would make bit mapped displays a lot more complicated. God help the programmer who has to write BITBLT for a spiral scan display.

inopinatus 3y ago

Three decades ago I was similarly overjoyed to discover that Scheme was finally going to have a useful application beyond illustrating SICP and writing koans to amuse myself, because DSSSL was on the cusp of evolving into the last document styling language anyone would ever need. Unfortunately following an incident with a broken Lisp machine, a liquid lunch, and an unlicensed particle accelerator, I became trapped in a parallel universe where the HTML ERB anointed CSS by mistake during a drunken night out in Oslo. The fundamental concept of CSS (best revealed by H.W.Lie's thesis IMO¹) was to create a rich and versatile and non-Turing-complete set of structural selectors in lieu of DSSSL's recursive logic, and to allow styles to overlay one another; two design choices that only by the application of gallons of irony can explain why most web pages are composed of a bunch of nested DIV elements with hashed IDs, overburdened class attributes, and assets compiled into static files. [1] https://www.wiumlie.no/2006/phd/css.pdf https://www.wiumlie.no/2006/phd/css.pdf

antod 3y ago
> Unfortunately following an incident with a broken Lisp machine, a liquid lunch, and an unlicensed particle accelerator, I became trapped in a parallel universe where the HTML ERB anointed CSS by mistake during a drunken night out in Oslo. Mostly though you're upset because respectable computer scientists didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.
toyg 3y ago
CSS is a classic case of road to hell paved by good intentions. "We'll have one style for the browser and one for printing!" - but turns out that nobody really gives a crap about printing, and when they do they want stuff printed exactly like it looks on screen. "Forget tables, we'll have stuff floating around the screen!" - but turns out that there are more requirements for positioning rules that can be contained in anyone's philosophy. Etc etc...

taejavu 3y ago

You might enjoy this talk by Dylan Beattie, it explores that kind of alternate history. “The Web That Never Was”: https://youtu.be/8JOD1AQGqEg https://youtu.be/8JOD1AQGqEg

netcraft 3y ago
only about 10 minutes in, but it looks like exactly the kind of thing I will enjoy. Thank you!

tzs 3y ago

> I agree, Id almost love to see a "For All Mankind"-esque show about it - an alternative history where browsers ran on lisp I've thought about something similar, but for hardware--what if some early hardware design choices had went in a different way? For example consider cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. A different choice by the CRT pioneers and we might have ended up with CRTs that scan outward in a spiral from the center, instead of scanning in a series of stacked left to right rows. That would make bit mapped displays a lot more complicated. God help the programmer who has to write BITBLT for a spiral scan display.