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The web is a mess. Where's the news in that? Code once and run in all platforms is pretty much a myth no matter the framework you use, including the web ecosys

The web is a mess. Where's the news in that? Code once and run in all platforms is pretty much a myth no matter the framework you use, including the web ecosystem. I've lost count of how many times I wished we could run in the browser a decent language like python or ruby. Or describe the data of documents in something more meaningful like JSON instead of HTML. And then there's the DOM, CCSS, and all the browser specific nonsense. Can I just ignore this crap and code my applications already?

Osmose 14y ago
I'm confused about the JSON > HTML part of your comment. Independent of which one is better overall, wouldn't HTML be more meaningful than JSON because it has semantics attached to tags?
- pserwylo 14y ago
  I've been working working working on a relatively complex user interface in JS at work lately (merging suspected duplicates from a CRM together, and specifying which fields from each duplicate contact is the "correct" field) . It involves a lot of DOM manipulation and user input/feedback. We make use of a jQuery in our app, and I was quite happy to see that although I develop in Chrome and Linux, the UI worked pretty much flawlessly on Firefox and Opera on Linux, and IE8 (and methinks 7, but can't remember) on Windows. We may be lucky in that we can ignore IE6 and earlier Firefox and Chrome, but my point is that something like jQuery does a damn fine job of abstracting away browser differences. May not be perfect, but better than we can afford to do. I say this because we probably all aware that we're stuck with JS in the browser for a while...
- wildranter 14y ago
  You're right, I didn't go far enough to make myself clear on that point. The semantics of HTML tags could be pretty easily covered by reserved words for keys, and something like markdown for text formatting. From that we'd get all the benefits of a cleaner syntax, such as a saner grammar which could lead to cleaner APIs, less bugs, less maintenance, etc.

Osmose 14y ago

I'm confused about the JSON > HTML part of your comment. Independent of which one is better overall, wouldn't HTML be more meaningful than JSON because it has semantics attached to tags?

pserwylo 14y ago
I've been working working working on a relatively complex user interface in JS at work lately (merging suspected duplicates from a CRM together, and specifying which fields from each duplicate contact is the "correct" field) . It involves a lot of DOM manipulation and user input/feedback. We make use of a jQuery in our app, and I was quite happy to see that although I develop in Chrome and Linux, the UI worked pretty much flawlessly on Firefox and Opera on Linux, and IE8 (and methinks 7, but can't remember) on Windows. We may be lucky in that we can ignore IE6 and earlier Firefox and Chrome, but my point is that something like jQuery does a damn fine job of abstracting away browser differences. May not be perfect, but better than we can afford to do. I say this because we probably all aware that we're stuck with JS in the browser for a while...
wildranter 14y ago
You're right, I didn't go far enough to make myself clear on that point. The semantics of HTML tags could be pretty easily covered by reserved words for keys, and something like markdown for text formatting. From that we'd get all the benefits of a cleaner syntax, such as a saner grammar which could lead to cleaner APIs, less bugs, less maintenance, etc.