Not just for mobile, but building a UI in html has always struck me as a hack. Mainly because the built-in components (dialogs, menus, buttons, etc) are lacking

Not just for mobile, but building a UI in html has always struck me as a hack. Mainly because the built-in components (dialogs, menus, buttons, etc) are lacking. And some components (tabs, overlays, etc) are missing altogether. I think most front-end devs are so used to it now, that it doesn't seem bizarre to build tabs with a list element, float the items to the left, add a clearing div below the list, etc.