3 ms·

He doesn't seem to get that what makes the web amazing is the data and people connected to it. That's generally far more interesting to users than novel interfa

by geoka9 14y ago

He doesn't seem to get that what makes the web amazing is the data and people connected to it. That's generally far more interesting to users than novel interfaces or whiz-bang features. Oh, the web has got plenty of whiz-bang features alright. My problem with it as a technology is that, compared to the Internet, it feels as an ad hoc concoction of such: clunky, buggy and a PITA to work with. I shudder to think what my programming experience would be if the other layers in the stack (PC hardware, Unix, TCP/IP, etc.) were built the same way.

nl 14y ago
I shudder to think what my programming experience would be if the other layers in the stack (PC hardware, Unix, TCP/IP, etc.) were built the same way. But it is!! I'd speculate you just don't know it as well as you know web programming. PC hardware.. do I really need to rehash the whole "the x86 architecture is horrible compared to Alpha/ARM/68000" discussion? Unix.. The original "Worse is Better"[1] essay was written about how Unix beat Lisp machines because it was worse! TCP/IP.. Well, there's that whole IPv6 thing where they try to fix some of the problems with IP[2]. Even that ignores many of the fundamental problems, though. All software is hacky when you get close enough. Once it has been around long enough the terrible corners get broken off and people get used to the problems, and can't imagine another way. [1] http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6
- geoka9 14y ago
  I'd speculate you just don't know it as well as you know web programming. My background is in systems programming and low level stuff; I've only been a web-programmer for two years. I agree with your points; all those technologies are not perfect. Their limitations are mostly the result of unexpected explosive growth (the 640kb barrier, depletion of the IP address space, etc.) But they feel soundly engineered overall. I just don't get the same feeling working with the web-related things (browsers, JS, AJAX, CSS, cross-domain policies and hacks to bypass them, etc, etc.). They all feel ad-hoc and it shows in the codebase I have to work with nowadays: it's often ugly, buggy and hard to maintain. As a systems programmer, I've been amazed by the ingenuity of things like process forking, pipes, the proc file system, regular expressions, lexer and parser generators (the list goes on). But I can't remember a single web-related technology that made my jaw drop in amazement. And I don't even want to get started on the difference in the quality standards and average mindset of hardware/OS design and web development (the whole "agile" and "extreme" programming thing and such).
  - kamaal 14y ago
    >>But they feel soundly engineered overall. The 'feel' so because you are made to believe so. We haven't seen anything else better in comparison. But those who have, talk about it. >>As a systems programmer, I've been amazed by the ingenuity of things like process forking, pipes, the proc file system, regular expressions, lexer and parser generators (the list goes on). But I can't remember a single web-related technology that made my jaw drop in amazement. Web means? Back end engineering is very much a part of the web. And the most of the things that you talk of like Parsing, regular expressions, pipes et al are all there in languages like Perl. Perl is known as a the swiss army knife of the Internet.
  - nl 14y ago
    But I can't remember a single web-related technology that made my jaw drop in amazement. http://bellard.org/jslinux/ http://bellard.org/jslinux/ Maybe not what you meant, but still pretty jaw dropping.
    - seabee 14y ago
      Jaw-dropping for the wrong reasons IMO. Reinventing the virtual machine poorly in a web browser is an impressive feat given the technical limitations but what does that actually prove? The demoscene is far more impressive in that regard.

by geoka9 14y ago

nl 14y ago

I shudder to think what my programming experience would be if the other layers in the stack (PC hardware, Unix, TCP/IP, etc.) were built the same way. But it is!! I'd speculate you just don't know it as well as you know web programming. PC hardware.. do I really need to rehash the whole "the x86 architecture is horrible compared to Alpha/ARM/68000" discussion? Unix.. The original "Worse is Better"[1] essay was written about how Unix beat Lisp machines because it was worse! TCP/IP.. Well, there's that whole IPv6 thing where they try to fix some of the problems with IP[2]. Even that ignores many of the fundamental problems, though. All software is hacky when you get close enough. Once it has been around long enough the terrible corners get broken off and people get used to the problems, and can't imagine another way. [1] http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6

geoka9 14y ago
I'd speculate you just don't know it as well as you know web programming. My background is in systems programming and low level stuff; I've only been a web-programmer for two years. I agree with your points; all those technologies are not perfect. Their limitations are mostly the result of unexpected explosive growth (the 640kb barrier, depletion of the IP address space, etc.) But they feel soundly engineered overall. I just don't get the same feeling working with the web-related things (browsers, JS, AJAX, CSS, cross-domain policies and hacks to bypass them, etc, etc.). They all feel ad-hoc and it shows in the codebase I have to work with nowadays: it's often ugly, buggy and hard to maintain. As a systems programmer, I've been amazed by the ingenuity of things like process forking, pipes, the proc file system, regular expressions, lexer and parser generators (the list goes on). But I can't remember a single web-related technology that made my jaw drop in amazement. And I don't even want to get started on the difference in the quality standards and average mindset of hardware/OS design and web development (the whole "agile" and "extreme" programming thing and such).
- kamaal 14y ago
  >>But they feel soundly engineered overall. The 'feel' so because you are made to believe so. We haven't seen anything else better in comparison. But those who have, talk about it. >>As a systems programmer, I've been amazed by the ingenuity of things like process forking, pipes, the proc file system, regular expressions, lexer and parser generators (the list goes on). But I can't remember a single web-related technology that made my jaw drop in amazement. Web means? Back end engineering is very much a part of the web. And the most of the things that you talk of like Parsing, regular expressions, pipes et al are all there in languages like Perl. Perl is known as a the swiss army knife of the Internet.
- nl 14y ago
  But I can't remember a single web-related technology that made my jaw drop in amazement. http://bellard.org/jslinux/ http://bellard.org/jslinux/ Maybe not what you meant, but still pretty jaw dropping.
  - seabee 14y ago
    Jaw-dropping for the wrong reasons IMO. Reinventing the virtual machine poorly in a web browser is an impressive feat given the technical limitations but what does that actually prove? The demoscene is far more impressive in that regard.