4 ms·

The modern web app has gone way beyond the simple HTML page - now there are components in all but name, handling their own libraries, network connections, estab

by neilk 13y ago

The modern web app has gone way beyond the simple HTML page - now there are components in all but name, handling their own libraries, network connections, establishing model-view-controller separation, and communicating with other components via events. But it's all simulated out of the technologies originally made for web pages. One sign that things have gone very wrong: a lot of developers have to treat the web page as a kind of compilation target. We've lost the simplicity the original web had. The authors believe in a future where if you wanted a particular rich text editor in your web app, you could just put <my-rich-text-editor/> in there. Done. No web browser can do this stuff today, but libraries like Polymer are trying to bridge the gap between today's browsers and the way they may look in the future. As another poster mentioned, it's attacking the same problems as Angular.js, with a similar approach. Indirectly it's competing with pretty much every client side web app framework.

mindcrime 13y ago
No web browser can do this stuff today, but libraries like Polymer are trying to bridge the gap between today's browsers and the way they may look in the future. We should probably stop calling them "web browsers" at this point. We've basically re-implemented the idea of an Operating System in the browser, so we now have a full-fledged OS like Linux, BSD, Plan9, OS/2, Minix or whatever, being used to host a "poor man's OS" which is recreating most of what the base OS does! To say "things have gone very wrong" is a dramatic understatement in many ways. I still think we messed up by migrating away from the mobile-code approach for apps. But I largely blame Sun for that, as they screwed the pooch by shipping the Consumer JRE about 7 years too late, ignoring needed features for doing desktop and interactive apps (like modern audio and video codecs, etc.) and didn't stay on top of JRE security. Now, Java, which was probably the best "mobile code" platform that ever got mainstream traction, is basically dead as a client platform. :-( Browsers are great for doing what they were designed to do: Browsing hypermedia. But to shoehorn "remote application delivery" into the browser seems like a step sideways (at best) to me. We're layering hacks on top of hacks on top of hacks now, to try and recreate the "app" experience inside the browser. This strikes me as sub-optimal.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- gbhn 13y ago
  For better or worse, the way software delivery has evolved on the web is that documents contain applications. I think that if we had known where we wanted to go, it may have been better to start the other direction, and make a web app API that basically allowed apps to contain documents. That would have avoided significant amounts of pain, and ended up looking more similar to what we have anyway -- web apps wanting or needing a larger and larger degree of extension-like autonomy and permission sharing with the browser.
- purplelobster 13y ago
  Of course it's sub-optimal, nobody is arguing against that. But from where we are today, there is no other way forward. There's not going to be another technology suddenly spring up that will replace the browser and allow websites as well as apps to run on any device in a matter of seconds, without installation simply by typing a short address and hitting enter. We're layering hacks upon hacks, but you'll just have to deal with it and stop complaining at some point, because no matter how much you'll complain it won't change.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    There's never only one way forward. Besides, how does the old saying go: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. So who knows, maybe somebody reads one of my rants one day and goes "Hey, this mindcrime guy has a point... and furthermore, I see a better way to do this" and takes some initiative. Who knows what might happen? Now, are the odds of that infinitesimal? Probably, but that's OK. I ran for public office (and lost) as a Libertarian, so that tells you what I think about odds. :-)
    - egeozcan 13y ago
      The important point here is "adaptation". The unreasonable do not "create new worlds", they just adapt the one they are living in.

by neilk 13y ago

mindcrime 13y ago

No web browser can do this stuff today, but libraries like Polymer are trying to bridge the gap between today's browsers and the way they may look in the future. We should probably stop calling them "web browsers" at this point. We've basically re-implemented the idea of an Operating System in the browser, so we now have a full-fledged OS like Linux, BSD, Plan9, OS/2, Minix or whatever, being used to host a "poor man's OS" which is recreating most of what the base OS does! To say "things have gone very wrong" is a dramatic understatement in many ways. I still think we messed up by migrating away from the mobile-code approach for apps. But I largely blame Sun for that, as they screwed the pooch by shipping the Consumer JRE about 7 years too late, ignoring needed features for doing desktop and interactive apps (like modern audio and video codecs, etc.) and didn't stay on top of JRE security. Now, Java, which was probably the best "mobile code" platform that ever got mainstream traction, is basically dead as a client platform. :-( Browsers are great for doing what they were designed to do: Browsing hypermedia. But to shoehorn "remote application delivery" into the browser seems like a step sideways (at best) to me. We're layering hacks on top of hacks on top of hacks now, to try and recreate the "app" experience inside the browser. This strikes me as sub-optimal.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gbhn 13y ago
For better or worse, the way software delivery has evolved on the web is that documents contain applications. I think that if we had known where we wanted to go, it may have been better to start the other direction, and make a web app API that basically allowed apps to contain documents. That would have avoided significant amounts of pain, and ended up looking more similar to what we have anyway -- web apps wanting or needing a larger and larger degree of extension-like autonomy and permission sharing with the browser.
purplelobster 13y ago
Of course it's sub-optimal, nobody is arguing against that. But from where we are today, there is no other way forward. There's not going to be another technology suddenly spring up that will replace the browser and allow websites as well as apps to run on any device in a matter of seconds, without installation simply by typing a short address and hitting enter. We're layering hacks upon hacks, but you'll just have to deal with it and stop complaining at some point, because no matter how much you'll complain it won't change.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  There's never only one way forward. Besides, how does the old saying go: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. So who knows, maybe somebody reads one of my rants one day and goes "Hey, this mindcrime guy has a point... and furthermore, I see a better way to do this" and takes some initiative. Who knows what might happen? Now, are the odds of that infinitesimal? Probably, but that's OK. I ran for public office (and lost) as a Libertarian, so that tells you what I think about odds. :-)
  - egeozcan 13y ago
    The important point here is "adaptation". The unreasonable do not "create new worlds", they just adapt the one they are living in.