6 ms·

HTML is ASCII.

by gertef 13y ago

HTML is ASCII.

williamcotton 13y ago
Sure, but compare "HTML + Web Browser + HTTP" to "ASCII + VT100"... Right now the terminal is our window and it is nothing but colored ASCII. You can create something interactive and "graphical" like vim or emacs inside of it, but then you can't ship that complete dev environment very easily... it has to be rebuilt from scratch by the individual programmer. The web makes it very easy to ship interactive, dynamic documents and environments around.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  You're not the first to have this idea, nor will you be the last. Think about why it has not succeeded already.
  - williamcotton 13y ago
    I have thought long and hard about why Smalltalk failed and have had numerous discussions with people and the general ideas are: * poor marketing * expensive, closed license * not enough effort put in to tooling But almost everyone agrees that there is a LOT that was lost when Smalltalk didn't take over the marketplace... the point is, it wasn't because they didn't go with the concept of a filesystem...
- icebraining 13y ago
  (I think everyone downvoting you is an idiot) I understand what you're saying, but the problem is, I don't want to have to use the preferred editor of the person that happens to be maintaining some random projects I'm editing. I like my VIM and my grep, and my colleague likes her Eclipse and her InstaSearch. Now, that doesn't mean we should eschew all metadata, but I rather see some structured data formats that can be interpreted by the editor and fitted to the user, instead of the other way around. In fact, I'd rather see the web itself move more in that direction. HTML/CSS may be wonderful in terms of the freedom they give to the developer, but it's no free lunch: we lost a lot of potential interoperability by going with free-form, unstructured formats instead of more content and less design driven ones.
  - williamcotton 13y ago
    Why can't we embed vim or emacs in a web document? Can I please point out that building graphical interfaces in ASCII is just about as bone-headed as my suggestion? :)
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Why can't we embed vim or emacs in a web document? We can, that's not the issue. The problem is that if you embed an editor - any editor - into the project, you're forcing everyone to use it, while currently each developer has the freedom to choose his own. And if don't embed the editor, then there's nothing to discuss; one can already use web based editors if one wants to, and I can use VIM ;) Can I please point out that building graphical interfaces in ASCII is just about as bone-headed as my suggestion? :) The whole reason I like VIM is because it barely has any graphical interface. The whole experience is extremely content focused, without a mess of buttons and toolbars obstructing the vision. I talk to it[1], it does what I tell it, and it stays out of my way. So I agree, but it doesn't apply in this case :) [1] http://yanpritzker.com/2011/12/16/learn-to-speak-vim-verbs-nouns-and-modifiers/ http://yanpritzker.com/2011/12/16/learn-to-speak-vim-verbs-n...
      - williamcotton 13y ago
        What if <THIS SPACE LEFT BLANK> and the end-user can supply their own editor? But then, how do we ship around the source editors meta data that is REALLY important, like, custom DSL syntax highlighting? Do we need a universal syntax highlighting engine? What other universal engines do we need to build interfaces in to Emacs and Vim and Eclipse and XCode and Visual Studio in order to tackle some of these issues?
        icebraining 13y ago
        You just need some standard, structured format for describing the syntax of a particular language. And we already have these; we use them as source for the parsers of the languages themselves. So it's mostly a question of augmenting them to provide highlighting-specific hints to the symbols.
- cantankerous 13y ago
  If you're trying to write code, what to HTTP bring to the game? I think in this case, HTTP would be equivalent to a really, really, really long cord for your keyboard to wherever your code is. Also, if you're using characters or glyphs to write code. It's always ASCII (or your character set of choice). It doesn't matter if it's in the browser or in a terminal. HTML presenting the code that your writing is just cruft.
  - williamcotton 13y ago
    Right now I'm looking at my terminal. It has a bunch of tabs. Each one of those tabs is a little "runtime". However, it is a runtime made up of ascii characters. That's what runs inside of it. Little letters, sometimes colored, sometimes made to look like borders for windows. And I've got this other thing called my web browser. It also has a bunch of tabs, and each one of those tabs is a little "runtime" as well. This one just happens to support embedding images, video, audio, non mono-spaced fonts... My terminal runtime communicates through the filesystem. (it's UNIX, files all the way down...) My web browser "runtime" communicates through HTTP. That's all I'm sayin'. --- Also, I KNOW why UNIX is all files and I get the whole concept of piping ASCII around... yeah, it's fucking awesome! And it's why UNIX is STILL around. It'll be around forever, and man, I DO like it, but should we use it for everything? Why? Piping ASCII around only gets you so far. :) Why am I getting so much HN downvote love for talking about some of the downsides of the UNIX-way?
    - icebraining 13y ago
      But most developers are already using runtimes that support images, videos, audio and non-monospaced fonts: they're called Qt, GTK, Cocoa, etc. So that's not really a reason to switch to the web.
      - williamcotton 13y ago
        Sure, but those runtimes are EXTERNAL to their editors! BTW, are you familiar with Literate Programming by Donald Knuth? And the reason I'm mentioning the web is because, well, it's a nearly universal runtime and the best thing we've got that might get a lot of really important and forgotten about concepts from Smalltalk back in to the mainstream of computing! Also, are you familiar with Don Knuth's Literate Programming? Thoughts on that? (And yes, I realize this thread is going absolutely everywhere, but I've got a lot of questions!)
jwilliams 13y ago
¿Is it? The HTML that contains your comment is UTF-8.
- gertef 13y ago
  Sorry, you're right. HTML is text.
ygra 13y ago
I'd seriously hope it's Unicode these days.

HTML is ASCII.

by gertef 13y ago

HTML is ASCII.

Sure, but compare "HTML + Web Browser + HTTP" to "ASCII + VT100"... Right now the terminal is our window and it is nothing but colored ASCII. You can create something interactive and "graphical" like vim or emacs inside of it, but then you can't ship that complete dev environment very easily... it has to be rebuilt from scratch by the individual programmer. The web makes it very easy to ship interactive, dynamic documents and environments around.

jlgreco 13y ago
You're not the first to have this idea, nor will you be the last. Think about why it has not succeeded already.
- williamcotton 13y ago
  I have thought long and hard about why Smalltalk failed and have had numerous discussions with people and the general ideas are: * poor marketing * expensive, closed license * not enough effort put in to tooling But almost everyone agrees that there is a LOT that was lost when Smalltalk didn't take over the marketplace... the point is, it wasn't because they didn't go with the concept of a filesystem...
icebraining 13y ago
(I think everyone downvoting you is an idiot) I understand what you're saying, but the problem is, I don't want to have to use the preferred editor of the person that happens to be maintaining some random projects I'm editing. I like my VIM and my grep, and my colleague likes her Eclipse and her InstaSearch. Now, that doesn't mean we should eschew all metadata, but I rather see some structured data formats that can be interpreted by the editor and fitted to the user, instead of the other way around. In fact, I'd rather see the web itself move more in that direction. HTML/CSS may be wonderful in terms of the freedom they give to the developer, but it's no free lunch: we lost a lot of potential interoperability by going with free-form, unstructured formats instead of more content and less design driven ones.
- williamcotton 13y ago
  Why can't we embed vim or emacs in a web document? Can I please point out that building graphical interfaces in ASCII is just about as bone-headed as my suggestion? :)
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Why can't we embed vim or emacs in a web document? We can, that's not the issue. The problem is that if you embed an editor - any editor - into the project, you're forcing everyone to use it, while currently each developer has the freedom to choose his own. And if don't embed the editor, then there's nothing to discuss; one can already use web based editors if one wants to, and I can use VIM ;) Can I please point out that building graphical interfaces in ASCII is just about as bone-headed as my suggestion? :) The whole reason I like VIM is because it barely has any graphical interface. The whole experience is extremely content focused, without a mess of buttons and toolbars obstructing the vision. I talk to it[1], it does what I tell it, and it stays out of my way. So I agree, but it doesn't apply in this case :) [1] http://yanpritzker.com/2011/12/16/learn-to-speak-vim-verbs-nouns-and-modifiers/ http://yanpritzker.com/2011/12/16/learn-to-speak-vim-verbs-n...
    - williamcotton 13y ago
      What if <THIS SPACE LEFT BLANK> and the end-user can supply their own editor? But then, how do we ship around the source editors meta data that is REALLY important, like, custom DSL syntax highlighting? Do we need a universal syntax highlighting engine? What other universal engines do we need to build interfaces in to Emacs and Vim and Eclipse and XCode and Visual Studio in order to tackle some of these issues?
      - icebraining 13y ago
        You just need some standard, structured format for describing the syntax of a particular language. And we already have these; we use them as source for the parsers of the languages themselves. So it's mostly a question of augmenting them to provide highlighting-specific hints to the symbols.
cantankerous 13y ago
If you're trying to write code, what to HTTP bring to the game? I think in this case, HTTP would be equivalent to a really, really, really long cord for your keyboard to wherever your code is. Also, if you're using characters or glyphs to write code. It's always ASCII (or your character set of choice). It doesn't matter if it's in the browser or in a terminal. HTML presenting the code that your writing is just cruft.
- williamcotton 13y ago
  Right now I'm looking at my terminal. It has a bunch of tabs. Each one of those tabs is a little "runtime". However, it is a runtime made up of ascii characters. That's what runs inside of it. Little letters, sometimes colored, sometimes made to look like borders for windows. And I've got this other thing called my web browser. It also has a bunch of tabs, and each one of those tabs is a little "runtime" as well. This one just happens to support embedding images, video, audio, non mono-spaced fonts... My terminal runtime communicates through the filesystem. (it's UNIX, files all the way down...) My web browser "runtime" communicates through HTTP. That's all I'm sayin'. --- Also, I KNOW why UNIX is all files and I get the whole concept of piping ASCII around... yeah, it's fucking awesome! And it's why UNIX is STILL around. It'll be around forever, and man, I DO like it, but should we use it for everything? Why? Piping ASCII around only gets you so far. :) Why am I getting so much HN downvote love for talking about some of the downsides of the UNIX-way?
  - icebraining 13y ago
    But most developers are already using runtimes that support images, videos, audio and non-monospaced fonts: they're called Qt, GTK, Cocoa, etc. So that's not really a reason to switch to the web.
    - williamcotton 13y ago
      Sure, but those runtimes are EXTERNAL to their editors! BTW, are you familiar with Literate Programming by Donald Knuth? And the reason I'm mentioning the web is because, well, it's a nearly universal runtime and the best thing we've got that might get a lot of really important and forgotten about concepts from Smalltalk back in to the mainstream of computing! Also, are you familiar with Don Knuth's Literate Programming? Thoughts on that? (And yes, I realize this thread is going absolutely everywhere, but I've got a lot of questions!)

jwilliams 13y ago

¿Is it? The HTML that contains your comment is UTF-8.

gertef 13y ago
Sorry, you're right. HTML is text.

ygra 13y ago

I'd seriously hope it's Unicode these days.