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In the future, we’ll decide HTML, CSS, and JS are too much of an inconsistent burden; so every website will bundle their own renderers into a <canvas> tag runni

In the future, we’ll decide HTML, CSS, and JS are too much of an inconsistent burden; so every website will bundle their own renderers into a <canvas> tag running off a WASM blob. Accessibility will be figured out later - just like it was for the early JavaScript frontends. I am looking forward to the HTML Frameworks explosion. You thought there were too many JS options? Imagine when anyone can fork HTML.

jsheard 2y ago
Why stop there? LLMs will free us from the shackles of having to ship actual code, instead we'll ship natural language descriptions and JIT them at runtime. It may use orders of magnitude more resources and only work half of the time but imagine the Developer Velocity™
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  In fact, with AI becoming more powerful, the <canvas> tag might soon become even more viable; because nobody will need ARIA tags or similar to tell them what’s on screen. The AI screen reader will look at the website as a whole and talk to the user. With accessibility no longer required, and with any UI being just a dumb framebuffer, we’ll finally see perfect chaos.
  - lynx97 2y ago
    And blind people will be the first test subjects for the "we see everything you read" project. Sweet. A small enough group that has no way out. Besides, after the initial giveaways, imagine the revenue if you can charge for every single pageview.
- Zekio 2y ago
  can't wait for all the imaginary features
  - tempodox 2y ago
    You can hallucinate them right now already. Just ask WebGPT.
- hnthrow90348765 2y ago
  The LLM created code will then be consumed by my AI agent which will rewrite the application to filter all of the bullshit and be fit for my minimalist preferences like a Reader Mode for CRUD apps.
swiftcoder 2y ago
You jest, but isn't this Web Components? Or alternately, Flutter
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Web Components was too verbose and nobody could figure it out. Flutter is just the beginning of the newest scheme by RAM manufacturers to bloat our RAM usage. We’ve stagnated at 8GB on midrange computers for too long.
  - emseetech 2y ago
    Web Components aren't that bad, but they could definitely use a DX makeover. For simple components, I much prefer them to firing up the React ecosystem.
asdajksah2123 2y ago
> every website will bundle their own renderers into a <canvas> tag running off a WASM blob Isn't that Flutter?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
threatofrain 2y ago
Soon it'll be all 3D content anyway... the old world of a graph of documents is going away. The web breathed a sigh of relief when Apple's Vision Pro bombed.
catapart 2y ago
Not that I intend to scale this in any way, but I'm working on an in-game UI rendered on the canvas, and I am thinking I might be able to hack something together based on this youtuber's library and excellent explainer video[0]. The thought had definitely occurred to me that if someone wanted to really roll up their sleeves and maintain a js port of the library, it would provide a translate-able UI from native C to native JS and back. At least, I can imagine a vite/webpack-like cli that reads the C implementation and spits out a js implementation. Of course, I could also imagine one that reads the C and provides the equivalent html/css/js. And others might scoff "why not just compile the whole C app into wasm", which would certainly be plenty performant in a lot of cases. So I guess I don't know why it isn't already being done, and that usually means I don't know enough about the problems to have any clue what it would actually take to make such things. In any case, I'm also looking forward to a quantum leap in web app UI! I'm not quite as optimistic that it's ever going to happen, I guess, but I can see a lot of benefit, if it did. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by9lQvpvMIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by9lQvpvMIc
peatmoss 2y ago
The state of web deployment in 2025 is the universe punishing me for calling java applets and other java web deployment tech "heavyweight" back in the day.
- fumar 2y ago
  What would we dev areas are important to you?
fumar 2y ago
I'm thinking about this space now. Ideally, I want a new browser like platform with stricter security properties than browsers but better rendering out of the box capabilities.
lynx97 2y ago
<canvas> is already a middle finger in the direction of accessibility. You don't need wasm to put blind people at an extra disadvantage. SVG Accessibility anyone? No? What a surprise. Classical web accessibility has basically ended. We (blind people) are only using sites which are sufficiently old to be still usable.
- rikroots 2y ago
  I'm genuinely trying to do something about <canvas> element accessibility. Whether it's enough ...? Probably not. But if I can do the work to try and show that <canvas> elements can be made more accessible, then there's no excuse for developers working on far more popular JS canvas libraries from making an attempt to better my efforts. I do strongly agree that <canvas> elements should not be used to replace HTML/CSS! My personal web hierarchy is 1. HTML/CSS/images; 2. Add (accessibility-friendly) JS if some fancy interaction is useful; 3. More complex - try SVG/CSS; 4. use <canvas> only if nothing else meets the project requirements. https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas
- mattl 2y ago
  Deaf person here working full time to try and make some consumer websites not terrible at the least.
  - lynx97 2y ago
    Great, thanks. Keep up the good work, we need everybody motivated!
- nicoburns 2y ago
  There has been some exploration around developing a JavaScript API for accessibility. If implemented, that would allow <canvas> renderers to be accessible. I hope people will consider that blocking for shipping canvas renderers, but we'll see.
- moi2388 2y ago
  You are blind? Could you perhaps point me to a good resource to make my websites or apps more accessible, perhaps even to test it in these regards? I’ve found some resources but when I look at them I also hear stories of blind people saying these guidelines only make things worse.

jsheard 2y ago

Why stop there? LLMs will free us from the shackles of having to ship actual code, instead we'll ship natural language descriptions and JIT them at runtime. It may use orders of magnitude more resources and only work half of the time but imagine the Developer Velocity™

gjsman-1000 2y ago
In fact, with AI becoming more powerful, the <canvas> tag might soon become even more viable; because nobody will need ARIA tags or similar to tell them what’s on screen. The AI screen reader will look at the website as a whole and talk to the user. With accessibility no longer required, and with any UI being just a dumb framebuffer, we’ll finally see perfect chaos.
- lynx97 2y ago
  And blind people will be the first test subjects for the "we see everything you read" project. Sweet. A small enough group that has no way out. Besides, after the initial giveaways, imagine the revenue if you can charge for every single pageview.
Zekio 2y ago
can't wait for all the imaginary features
- tempodox 2y ago
  You can hallucinate them right now already. Just ask WebGPT.
hnthrow90348765 2y ago
The LLM created code will then be consumed by my AI agent which will rewrite the application to filter all of the bullshit and be fit for my minimalist preferences like a Reader Mode for CRUD apps.

swiftcoder 2y ago

You jest, but isn't this Web Components? Or alternately, Flutter

gjsman-1000 2y ago
Web Components was too verbose and nobody could figure it out. Flutter is just the beginning of the newest scheme by RAM manufacturers to bloat our RAM usage. We’ve stagnated at 8GB on midrange computers for too long.
- emseetech 2y ago
  Web Components aren't that bad, but they could definitely use a DX makeover. For simple components, I much prefer them to firing up the React ecosystem.

asdajksah2123 2y ago

> every website will bundle their own renderers into a <canvas> tag running off a WASM blob Isn't that Flutter?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

threatofrain 2y ago

Soon it'll be all 3D content anyway... the old world of a graph of documents is going away. The web breathed a sigh of relief when Apple's Vision Pro bombed.

catapart 2y ago

Not that I intend to scale this in any way, but I'm working on an in-game UI rendered on the canvas, and I am thinking I might be able to hack something together based on this youtuber's library and excellent explainer video[0]. The thought had definitely occurred to me that if someone wanted to really roll up their sleeves and maintain a js port of the library, it would provide a translate-able UI from native C to native JS and back. At least, I can imagine a vite/webpack-like cli that reads the C implementation and spits out a js implementation. Of course, I could also imagine one that reads the C and provides the equivalent html/css/js. And others might scoff "why not just compile the whole C app into wasm", which would certainly be plenty performant in a lot of cases. So I guess I don't know why it isn't already being done, and that usually means I don't know enough about the problems to have any clue what it would actually take to make such things. In any case, I'm also looking forward to a quantum leap in web app UI! I'm not quite as optimistic that it's ever going to happen, I guess, but I can see a lot of benefit, if it did. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by9lQvpvMIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by9lQvpvMIc

peatmoss 2y ago

The state of web deployment in 2025 is the universe punishing me for calling java applets and other java web deployment tech "heavyweight" back in the day.

fumar 2y ago
What would we dev areas are important to you?

fumar 2y ago

I'm thinking about this space now. Ideally, I want a new browser like platform with stricter security properties than browsers but better rendering out of the box capabilities.

lynx97 2y ago

<canvas> is already a middle finger in the direction of accessibility. You don't need wasm to put blind people at an extra disadvantage. SVG Accessibility anyone? No? What a surprise. Classical web accessibility has basically ended. We (blind people) are only using sites which are sufficiently old to be still usable.

rikroots 2y ago
I'm genuinely trying to do something about <canvas> element accessibility. Whether it's enough ...? Probably not. But if I can do the work to try and show that <canvas> elements can be made more accessible, then there's no excuse for developers working on far more popular JS canvas libraries from making an attempt to better my efforts. I do strongly agree that <canvas> elements should not be used to replace HTML/CSS! My personal web hierarchy is 1. HTML/CSS/images; 2. Add (accessibility-friendly) JS if some fancy interaction is useful; 3. More complex - try SVG/CSS; 4. use <canvas> only if nothing else meets the project requirements. https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas
mattl 2y ago
Deaf person here working full time to try and make some consumer websites not terrible at the least.
- lynx97 2y ago
  Great, thanks. Keep up the good work, we need everybody motivated!
nicoburns 2y ago
There has been some exploration around developing a JavaScript API for accessibility. If implemented, that would allow <canvas> renderers to be accessible. I hope people will consider that blocking for shipping canvas renderers, but we'll see.
moi2388 2y ago
You are blind? Could you perhaps point me to a good resource to make my websites or apps more accessible, perhaps even to test it in these regards? I’ve found some resources but when I look at them I also hear stories of blind people saying these guidelines only make things worse.