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Honestly, I don't see a point. Presumably, it originates from the belief that the the web is the future and that it will finally replace native platforms. I use

Honestly, I don't see a point. Presumably, it originates from the belief that the the web is the future and that it will finally replace native platforms. I used to strongly believe in that too but now I don't think it will happen any time soon, if at all. Currently there are two kinds of platforms: the web, initilly intended for documents and native platforms, designed primarily for apps. Both have different strengths. The web: no installation, hyperlinking, decentralization and openess, etc. Native plaftorms: window manager, speed, collaboration between apps, much richer API, centralization (enabling human interface guidelines for example), etc. A third platform having the best of both worlds would be great but that's just my utopic dream :)

spankalee 13y ago
You can try to get there by bringing the benefits of the web to apps, and by bringing the benefits of apps to the web. We're already seeing this with ChromeOS, FirefoxOS, Cordova, etc. on the web side, and various efforts to streamline app installation, add deep linking, and other things on the app side. Personally, I think browsers can be a quite good application platform - they're basically a view hierarchy, with a layout and styling system, an event model, and scripting engine. With efforts like the *OS APIs, custom elements, asm.js/PNaCl/Dart, WebGL, canvas, Service Workers... there's a lot you can do, all in a stack that's easily accessible to millions of developers.