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I wonder why the web technologies are not fully integrated like the Smalltalk and Self graphical environments... Is it impossible or did it just end up that way

I wonder why the web technologies are not fully integrated like the Smalltalk and Self graphical environments... Is it impossible or did it just end up that way and it's too late to change it now?

layer8 3y ago
Mostly the latter. The web wasn’t designed to become an application platform.
afiori 3y ago
The DOM API is not designed as a JavaScript API (at least originally). It was designed to be language independent and to be more natural for a language like Java rather than JavaScript. The reason for NodeList instead of Array is the same For example the Event interface definition[0] contains parts like const unsigned short NONE = 0; [0] https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#interface-event https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#interface-event
- jaffathecake 3y ago
  That's used as a constant for eventPhase https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#ref-for-dom-event-none%E2%91%A2 https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#ref-for-dom-event-none%E2%91%A2 In modern DOM APIs, it would be a string enum.
  - afiori 3y ago
    I did not mean to disparage the DOM API, I intended to show that the DOM API was not (initially) designed as a Javascript API and was instead expressed in a language independent (but Java inspired) IDL. I would not surprise me if modern addition or revisions to the spec were more JS inspired