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It's unfortunate that the whole discourse is about one of the worst imaginable outcomes: replacing apps with shitty slow bloated underperforming web apps. That

by troupo 3y ago

It's unfortunate that the whole discourse is about one of the worst imaginable outcomes: replacing apps with shitty slow bloated underperforming web apps. That is, the discourse is valid, and Apple is to blame. But why did it have to be around PWAs of all things?

anon373839 3y ago
Web apps aren’t inherently slow, bloated or underperforming. You can absolutely build a snappy, polished web app with a UI layer that rivals a native app. (I don’t personally enjoy working with JavaScript, but the reward of truly cross-platform development makes it worth doing when it’s a viable option.)
- vinay427 3y ago
  I'm genuinely curious: do you have any examples you'd like to share? Not that React Native is the same as a PWA, but even in that space I have yet to find an RN app (at least those I know about from their Showcase page [1]) that rivals a native app on iOS, but perhaps it's wrong to assume a React Native app would be comparable to or strictly better than a PWA. [1] https://reactnative.dev/showcase https://reactnative.dev/showcase
  - anon373839 3y ago
    I don’t have an example I can show, unfortunately. I am currently building an app for internal use, and because I’m obsessive about presentation, I ironed out every wrinkle in this department. It’s 100% fluid, there are no layout shifts, no surprises anywhere. You would never know it’s not native. But I will admit it took a lot of effort to hunt down all the little idiosyncrasies and fix them. I think a problem with frontend web development is that there are a lot of mediocre practices that became standard operating procedure. When I do this type of work, I try to keep the dependencies very lean and write a lot of stuff from scratch.
    - szasamasa 3y ago
      me too it is just totally possible, there are so many web api-s, you just need to be a good programmer and study a lot you will not really find or use big web apps because 1. most companies have already built their native apps with mobile engineers 2. web "programmers" or rather designers are stuck with old tech 3. web apps will start to become strategic targets(!) by most developers/companies if you are sure they are cross platform (which was crippled by Apple and now they even try to eliminate modern web capabilities on iOS
      - troupo 3y ago
        Which modern web capabilities for a strategic investment that Apple tries to eliminate require you to load 2.5 megabytes of Javascript to show a few lines of text? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39413396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39413396
- troupo 3y ago
  Funny how the vast majority of web apps are not snappy, or polished, or rival native apps. The whole discourse around PWAs is frankly schizophrenic. Web apps (esp. Electron-based) on desktop: universally regarded as bloated, slow, resource-intensive for the simplest tasks, breaking platform conventions etc. You add a P in front, and talk about mobile? Oh, PWAs are the bee's knees, just as good or better than native etc. And yet, when you ask for examples of these amazing apps (after all, Android with full PWA support has dominated mobile market for over a decade) we get either silence or... Twitter.
  - agust 3y ago
    Electron-based apps are not PWAs. PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine. They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way. There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines and degrading the experience in Safari for a decade.
    - troupo 3y ago
      Just as I said: you add a P in front of web apps, suddenly as if by magic all the issues disappear. > PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine. Ah yes, they don't need a browser engine, they just need a browser engine > They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way. So, let me get it straight. A web app running inside a web browser engine is bloated, slow, and non-performant when it's on desktop. But the moment you put it on mobile it's not? > There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines Two notes: - Which of the features that Apple "crippled" will help web apps not be bloated, non-performant, slow, with bad UI etc.? Is it the lack of an install banner that makes a web app struggle to display even a static text with any semblance of performance? Is it the lack of push of notifications that make Google say: okay, we give up, most sites load in over 2.5 seconds now, so we assume anything faster than that is a win [1]? Is it <the list is frankly endless>... - Android has been a dominant mobile OS for over a decade with "non-crippled" PWA support. Where are the not inherently bloated non-resource-intensive web apps we've been hearing about? Please say Twitter :)) [1] https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vitals.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vit...
szasamasa 3y ago
do I just hear the arguments again how java is slow vs c++? the browser is the jvm of a web app, very secure and js engines like V8 is extremely capable... although js programs can be run at near native speed (the browser is a c++ program normally and there is native compilation of some code fragments) you should also make yourself familiar with webassembly tech... some folks use even node.js on the server side... the js UI model is also very good and nobody is replacing native apps, there will be a great competition and in those areas where native has competitive edge, it will win
- troupo 3y ago
  > do I just hear the arguments again how java is slow vs c++? No, no you don't > the browser is the jvm of a web app, very secure and js engines like V8 is extremely capable And what this has to do with apps and the fact that web apps are universally slow, bloated, underperforming, and require significantly more resources to do the most primitive things than native apps? > you should also make yourself familiar with webassembly tech Same question as above > some folks use even node.js on the server side... Some folks use even java server side... this surely means we have an abundance of amazing great apps written in Java? > the js UI model is also very good There's literally no UI model in Javascript. > there will be a great competition and in those areas where native has competitive edge, it will win There will be no competition because lazy people and people who have never seen the world outside their web bubble will simply opt for the cheapest option.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > No, no you don't Yeah, yeah, he does. Not only C/C++ v. Java, but before that ASM v. C/C++. > There will be no competition because lazy people and people who have never seen the world outside their web bubble will simply opt for the cheapest option. This is what most people would consider an opportunity. Get off HN and write competing apps. If these are really "lazy" developers delivering "slow and bloated" apps, you should have no problem kicking their asses in the marketplace. But you won't.
    - 3y ago

by troupo 3y ago

anon373839 3y ago

Web apps aren’t inherently slow, bloated or underperforming. You can absolutely build a snappy, polished web app with a UI layer that rivals a native app. (I don’t personally enjoy working with JavaScript, but the reward of truly cross-platform development makes it worth doing when it’s a viable option.)

vinay427 3y ago
I'm genuinely curious: do you have any examples you'd like to share? Not that React Native is the same as a PWA, but even in that space I have yet to find an RN app (at least those I know about from their Showcase page [1]) that rivals a native app on iOS, but perhaps it's wrong to assume a React Native app would be comparable to or strictly better than a PWA. [1] https://reactnative.dev/showcase https://reactnative.dev/showcase
- anon373839 3y ago
  I don’t have an example I can show, unfortunately. I am currently building an app for internal use, and because I’m obsessive about presentation, I ironed out every wrinkle in this department. It’s 100% fluid, there are no layout shifts, no surprises anywhere. You would never know it’s not native. But I will admit it took a lot of effort to hunt down all the little idiosyncrasies and fix them. I think a problem with frontend web development is that there are a lot of mediocre practices that became standard operating procedure. When I do this type of work, I try to keep the dependencies very lean and write a lot of stuff from scratch.
  - szasamasa 3y ago
    me too it is just totally possible, there are so many web api-s, you just need to be a good programmer and study a lot you will not really find or use big web apps because 1. most companies have already built their native apps with mobile engineers 2. web "programmers" or rather designers are stuck with old tech 3. web apps will start to become strategic targets(!) by most developers/companies if you are sure they are cross platform (which was crippled by Apple and now they even try to eliminate modern web capabilities on iOS
    - troupo 3y ago
      Which modern web capabilities for a strategic investment that Apple tries to eliminate require you to load 2.5 megabytes of Javascript to show a few lines of text? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39413396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39413396
troupo 3y ago
Funny how the vast majority of web apps are not snappy, or polished, or rival native apps. The whole discourse around PWAs is frankly schizophrenic. Web apps (esp. Electron-based) on desktop: universally regarded as bloated, slow, resource-intensive for the simplest tasks, breaking platform conventions etc. You add a P in front, and talk about mobile? Oh, PWAs are the bee's knees, just as good or better than native etc. And yet, when you ask for examples of these amazing apps (after all, Android with full PWA support has dominated mobile market for over a decade) we get either silence or... Twitter.
- agust 3y ago
  Electron-based apps are not PWAs. PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine. They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way. There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines and degrading the experience in Safari for a decade.
  - troupo 3y ago
    Just as I said: you add a P in front of web apps, suddenly as if by magic all the issues disappear. > PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine. Ah yes, they don't need a browser engine, they just need a browser engine > They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way. So, let me get it straight. A web app running inside a web browser engine is bloated, slow, and non-performant when it's on desktop. But the moment you put it on mobile it's not? > There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines Two notes: - Which of the features that Apple "crippled" will help web apps not be bloated, non-performant, slow, with bad UI etc.? Is it the lack of an install banner that makes a web app struggle to display even a static text with any semblance of performance? Is it the lack of push of notifications that make Google say: okay, we give up, most sites load in over 2.5 seconds now, so we assume anything faster than that is a win [1]? Is it <the list is frankly endless>... - Android has been a dominant mobile OS for over a decade with "non-crippled" PWA support. Where are the not inherently bloated non-resource-intensive web apps we've been hearing about? Please say Twitter :)) [1] https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vitals.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vit...

szasamasa 3y ago

do I just hear the arguments again how java is slow vs c++? the browser is the jvm of a web app, very secure and js engines like V8 is extremely capable... although js programs can be run at near native speed (the browser is a c++ program normally and there is native compilation of some code fragments) you should also make yourself familiar with webassembly tech... some folks use even node.js on the server side... the js UI model is also very good and nobody is replacing native apps, there will be a great competition and in those areas where native has competitive edge, it will win

troupo 3y ago
> do I just hear the arguments again how java is slow vs c++? No, no you don't > the browser is the jvm of a web app, very secure and js engines like V8 is extremely capable And what this has to do with apps and the fact that web apps are universally slow, bloated, underperforming, and require significantly more resources to do the most primitive things than native apps? > you should also make yourself familiar with webassembly tech Same question as above > some folks use even node.js on the server side... Some folks use even java server side... this surely means we have an abundance of amazing great apps written in Java? > the js UI model is also very good There's literally no UI model in Javascript. > there will be a great competition and in those areas where native has competitive edge, it will win There will be no competition because lazy people and people who have never seen the world outside their web bubble will simply opt for the cheapest option.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > No, no you don't Yeah, yeah, he does. Not only C/C++ v. Java, but before that ASM v. C/C++. > There will be no competition because lazy people and people who have never seen the world outside their web bubble will simply opt for the cheapest option. This is what most people would consider an opportunity. Get off HN and write competing apps. If these are really "lazy" developers delivering "slow and bloated" apps, you should have no problem kicking their asses in the marketplace. But you won't.
  - 3y ago