5 ms·

Innovation is never constantly increasing. It usually appears in bursts, and stops around the point that humans don't need it as much, or development hits a cei

Innovation is never constantly increasing. It usually appears in bursts, and stops around the point that humans don't need it as much, or development hits a ceiling of effort. But it's always slowly simmering. Usually it's research or yak-shaving that, after years, suddenly appears as if out of nowhere as a useful product. I am hopeful that in my lifetime, the web will die. It's such an insanely stupid application platform. An OS on an OS, in a document reader (which, due to humans' ability to go to any lengths to avoid hard work, literally all new network protocols have to be built on top of). You want cool visualizations? Maybe don't lock yourself into using a goddamn networked document viewer. Native apps can do literally anything. But here we are, the most advanced lifeforms on the planet, trapped in a cage of our own making.

mjevans 2y ago
In HN spirit / guidelines, I'm going to presume the best. Did you mean: "the web (as an application platform) will die" / once again swing back from mainframe / thin client to powerful local computing platforms? In the spirit of empowering the user, I too hope the average user once again owns their destiny, the storage, computation, and control of their data. Though I think the web as a publishing media does empower that user if there are open platforms that promote the ability to choose any fulfillment partner they desire.
billyp-rva 2y ago
> Native apps can do literally anything. That's just as much a downside as an upside. You're putting a lot of trust in a native app that you aren't putting in a website.
- nullpoint420 2y ago
  What about sandboxed native apps? If the browser can do it, why can't native apps do it as well?
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    It's much harder than it looks. I've investigated all this very deeply and should really write a blog post about it.
    - nullpoint420 2y ago
      A blog post would be awesome, I haven't done a massive deep-dive. (and no pressure if you end up not writing it)
      - mike_hearn 2y ago
        The gist is that native sandboxing is a mess of undocumented APIs, very different approaches between operating systems, one-size-fits-all policies, kernels are full of bugs, the whole setup is a nightmare to debug and to top it off there are no useful cross-platform abstractions. Not even Chrome has one; beyond Mojo the sandbox is a pile of special cases and platform specific code all over the codebase.
- treyd 2y ago
  We have sandboxing technology on every modern operating system.
fumar 2y ago
I am exploring an alternative browser-like platform concept that would allow for near native performance. However established web protocols are hard to overcome.
pphysch 2y ago
Stagnation in viz design has pretty much nothing to do with the shrinking native<->web capability gap, and the web is here to stay.
feoren 2y ago
> An OS on an OS, in a document reader Versus an interpreted language executed in a runtime running on a virtual thread of an OS running on top of a BIOS over a glorified calculator!? Insanity! Whatever happened to good old-fashioned pen and paper!? There's nothing wrong with the model of delivering your software as a small program to run in a sandboxed browser environment. WASM, canvas, WebGL -- you can do nearly as much on the web as native nowadays, with a dead-simple deployment model. One of the only type of programs that's much harder to make in a web application is malware. Calling a modern browser a "networked document reader" is as silly as calling a modern computer a calculator.
- collingreen 2y ago
  The DOM seems fair to call a networked document reader. You've suggested a different build target for what would have been native apps - I think you and OP meet in the middle a bit; you get the power of non-html app development. OP laments the overhead of having to shove that into the existing web model designed for documents; you appreciate the sandboxing. I think you have similar opinions that mostly overlap, regardless of insults about statements being silly.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  You’re assuming that teaching fleshy monkeys to smear their gunk on glorified bathroom tissue was ever a good idea.
slt2021 2y ago
>>Native apps can do literally anything like hack your banking account or steal your password...
ericmcer 2y ago
The web is just a convention that gained rapid adoption so now browsers dominate software. As far as conventions go, it is not bad compared to some of the stuff humans have landed on. Better than paving over everything so we can drive and park cars all over, better than everything being single use and disposable. Web has it's ups and downs but it is decent based on our track record.
ryandrake 2y ago
> I am hopeful that in my lifetime, the web will die. I'd like to see the www go back to its roots as a way to share and browse documents, hyperlinked together. The web worked when it was just documents to render and click on links. It is terrible as an application platform. It's been 30 years since JavaScript was invented. Imagine what we'd have today, if instead of making the WWW into this half-assed application platform, those 30 years of collective brainpower were instead spent on making a great cross-platform native application development and delivery system!
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Native for Windows, Macs, Linux, iPhones and Android devices? Now imagine trying to update all of those native apps across a large enterprise or multiple large enterprises. Since I do use multiple devices, when everything is on the web, you also don’t have to worry about syncing or conflict resolution like you do with semi connected scenarios.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    > Native for Windows, Macs, Linux, iPhones and Android devices? > Now imagine trying to update all of those native apps across a large enterprise or multiple large enterprises. With the tools we have now, it would absolutely not work. In my post I was imagining a parallel alternate universe where native development tools got all the brainpower and innovation over the last 30 years, instead of the web tools getting it.
    - mjevans 2y ago
      The web got it because for some _insane_ reason, websites were able to convince IT departments to allow scripts to run. That left the barn door unlocked. Suddenly the download everything every time (or hope some is at least cached) environment of JavaScript / ECMAScript became the ONE place a user could 'for sure' 'install' (run someone else's unapproved) program. - Websites, _really_, should work just fine with zero scripts turned on. Possibly with the exception of a short list of trusted or user approved websites.
pjmlp 2y ago
Same here, although most of my UI work is on the Web nowadays, I miss the days when the browser was only for hypertext documents, and everything else was done natively with networking protocols, and standards. Hence why my hobby coding has nothing to do with Web technologies, Web pays the bills, other stuff is for fun.

mjevans 2y ago

In HN spirit / guidelines, I'm going to presume the best. Did you mean: "the web (as an application platform) will die" / once again swing back from mainframe / thin client to powerful local computing platforms? In the spirit of empowering the user, I too hope the average user once again owns their destiny, the storage, computation, and control of their data. Though I think the web as a publishing media does empower that user if there are open platforms that promote the ability to choose any fulfillment partner they desire.

billyp-rva 2y ago

> Native apps can do literally anything. That's just as much a downside as an upside. You're putting a lot of trust in a native app that you aren't putting in a website.

nullpoint420 2y ago
What about sandboxed native apps? If the browser can do it, why can't native apps do it as well?
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  It's much harder than it looks. I've investigated all this very deeply and should really write a blog post about it.
  - nullpoint420 2y ago
    A blog post would be awesome, I haven't done a massive deep-dive. (and no pressure if you end up not writing it)
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      The gist is that native sandboxing is a mess of undocumented APIs, very different approaches between operating systems, one-size-fits-all policies, kernels are full of bugs, the whole setup is a nightmare to debug and to top it off there are no useful cross-platform abstractions. Not even Chrome has one; beyond Mojo the sandbox is a pile of special cases and platform specific code all over the codebase.
treyd 2y ago
We have sandboxing technology on every modern operating system.

fumar 2y ago

I am exploring an alternative browser-like platform concept that would allow for near native performance. However established web protocols are hard to overcome.

pphysch 2y ago

Stagnation in viz design has pretty much nothing to do with the shrinking native<->web capability gap, and the web is here to stay.

feoren 2y ago

> An OS on an OS, in a document reader Versus an interpreted language executed in a runtime running on a virtual thread of an OS running on top of a BIOS over a glorified calculator!? Insanity! Whatever happened to good old-fashioned pen and paper!? There's nothing wrong with the model of delivering your software as a small program to run in a sandboxed browser environment. WASM, canvas, WebGL -- you can do nearly as much on the web as native nowadays, with a dead-simple deployment model. One of the only type of programs that's much harder to make in a web application is malware. Calling a modern browser a "networked document reader" is as silly as calling a modern computer a calculator.

collingreen 2y ago
The DOM seems fair to call a networked document reader. You've suggested a different build target for what would have been native apps - I think you and OP meet in the middle a bit; you get the power of non-html app development. OP laments the overhead of having to shove that into the existing web model designed for documents; you appreciate the sandboxing. I think you have similar opinions that mostly overlap, regardless of insults about statements being silly.
dullcrisp 2y ago
You’re assuming that teaching fleshy monkeys to smear their gunk on glorified bathroom tissue was ever a good idea.

slt2021 2y ago

>>Native apps can do literally anything like hack your banking account or steal your password...

ericmcer 2y ago

The web is just a convention that gained rapid adoption so now browsers dominate software. As far as conventions go, it is not bad compared to some of the stuff humans have landed on. Better than paving over everything so we can drive and park cars all over, better than everything being single use and disposable. Web has it's ups and downs but it is decent based on our track record.

ryandrake 2y ago

> I am hopeful that in my lifetime, the web will die. I'd like to see the www go back to its roots as a way to share and browse documents, hyperlinked together. The web worked when it was just documents to render and click on links. It is terrible as an application platform. It's been 30 years since JavaScript was invented. Imagine what we'd have today, if instead of making the WWW into this half-assed application platform, those 30 years of collective brainpower were instead spent on making a great cross-platform native application development and delivery system!

scarface_74 2y ago
Native for Windows, Macs, Linux, iPhones and Android devices? Now imagine trying to update all of those native apps across a large enterprise or multiple large enterprises. Since I do use multiple devices, when everything is on the web, you also don’t have to worry about syncing or conflict resolution like you do with semi connected scenarios.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  > Native for Windows, Macs, Linux, iPhones and Android devices? > Now imagine trying to update all of those native apps across a large enterprise or multiple large enterprises. With the tools we have now, it would absolutely not work. In my post I was imagining a parallel alternate universe where native development tools got all the brainpower and innovation over the last 30 years, instead of the web tools getting it.
  - mjevans 2y ago
    The web got it because for some _insane_ reason, websites were able to convince IT departments to allow scripts to run. That left the barn door unlocked. Suddenly the download everything every time (or hope some is at least cached) environment of JavaScript / ECMAScript became the ONE place a user could 'for sure' 'install' (run someone else's unapproved) program. - Websites, _really_, should work just fine with zero scripts turned on. Possibly with the exception of a short list of trusted or user approved websites.

pjmlp 2y ago

Same here, although most of my UI work is on the Web nowadays, I miss the days when the browser was only for hypertext documents, and everything else was done natively with networking protocols, and standards. Hence why my hobby coding has nothing to do with Web technologies, Web pays the bills, other stuff is for fun.