5 ms·

I dunno, I'm not really crazy about the prospect of random web sites murdering my phone's battery with superfluous WebGL animations. Remind me again why web pag

I dunno, I'm not really crazy about the prospect of random web sites murdering my phone's battery with superfluous WebGL animations. Remind me again why web pages need the ability to display realtime 3D graphics? I don't like a lot of what Apple does, but I'm glad somebody isn't thrilled with the idea of "the browser" becoming the world's most Lovecraftian cross-platform runtime, even if it's only out of self-interest.

debt 13y ago
This is where I'm at. What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective? If a developer wants to create a game, I'll just use OpenGL or CoreGraphics to do it.
- pyalot2 13y ago
  The click trough rate from a website to a downloadable/appstorable package until it's installed, found, opened and used is around 1%. The click trough rate from a website to another website is around 50%. Writing a native application requires you to port that application to every conceivable app-store and platform in order to get it to run most places, this includes, but is not limited to: Writing it once in C++, once in ObjectiveC, once In java, package it for x86-64 windows classic, package it for x86-64 windows metro, once for x86 windows classic, x86 windows metro, Wart, Android, iOS, RPM, DEB, etc. A native app also requires you to come up with a solution to windowing (on windowing platforms, such as WGL, GLX etc.), sound (alsa, openal, directsound etc.), input (xinput (X), xinput or directinput (windows), cocoa (osx) etc.), etc. etc. It also requires you to come up with a solution on how to build guis, which a lot of games do these days by simply embedding webkit... It also requires you to come up with a solution to scripting, which is already built into browsers, but nevertheless, many embedd anglescript, lua, etc. Etc. etc. etc. Why do WebGL? Maybe think about that again, really carefully.
  - ANTSANTS 13y ago
    >What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective?
    - pyalot2 13y ago
      What's the point of doing a browser at all then? Or email? Or a new device? Or having a company in the first place? Or inventing anything? How can you tell a tech company is dead and done for? It's when they stop pushing the boundaries, when they stop serving their users, when they stop inventing, when they stop competing. Because, they think they can afford it, famous last words of countless once mighty giants.
      - ANTSANTS 13y ago
        That's more than a bit of a stretch. More like, Apple cares about the security of their sandbox and having exclusive control over the sale of software on their platform, and doesn't see the need to include a feature that a) practically guarantees security vulnerabilities, b) weakens their control over content for iOS, and c) users don't really care about at the moment. Jailbreakers have exploited vulnerabilities in FreeType of all things, but who cares, let's just give them more ammunition! I'm sure it will work out fine. Apple: Dead and done for because they made a sane decision. You heard it here first, folks.
        jabits 13y ago
        Yes, things are perfect now. Don't change anything!
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Unity, SDL, Project Anarchy, Cocos2d-X, Marmalade, ...
pyrocat 13y ago
So... don't visit those sites?
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  Oh ok, let's keep a gaping security vulnerability open in the one runtime that everyone demands the ability to shove heaps of untrusted code into, just so that people can see the occasional really cool demo that gets posted on HN every few months run at 10 FPS on their phone. There are holes in every graphics driver and OpenGL implementation out there (it's practically unavoidable, as it's a fairly low-level API). To expose that layer of an operating system to any random webpage a user clicks on is utter lunacy. "So don't visit those sites." That's like saying your operating system's security policy is "just don't go to bad sites and you won't get viruses!" @pavlov I'm not happy about CSS3 animations or the abundance of Javascript you see today either, but that doesn't excuse people to pile even more ridiculous and insecure crap onto "the browser."
  - pyrocat 13y ago
    That's totally a legitimate criticism, and one that I hadn't heard before. Complaining about your phone's battery life when you can just as easily not visit the site has a lot less weight to it.
    - pyalot2 13y ago
      It's not legitimate criticism, because ARB_robustness exists. It's pure FUD.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - ANTSANTS 13y ago
      >That's totally a legitimate criticism I was adding it to my original comment when the driveby downvoters arrived. >Complaining about your phone's battery life when you can just as easily not visit the site has a lot less weight to it. Do you really think that advertisers won't latch on to WebGL if it becomes widely adopted? I'm not "complaining" about the possibility of seeing some WebGL on $game_site, I'm worried about the inevitability of the banner ads that I already can't block on my phone suddenly becoming filled with eyecatching, battery-wasting 3D graphics, just as banner ads these days already use CSS3 animations to the same effect. I don't see why that isn't a valid concern. Also, it's a matter of principle for me that apparently web developers don't agree with. I like the web as hypertext + the dumb terminal of our time. I don't see how things like WebGL benefit anybody but game developers and advertisers. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that sees the value in keeping the dumb terminal and the cross platform application API separate. We need both. There should be a simple way to run a game on all platforms (err, ignore for the moment that it already exists and is called SDL), and there should be some kind of easy-to-use "dumb" interface to society, but we're doing the world a disservice to combine the two. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think certain vested interests are determined to turn the former into the latter, because they want to have their advertising pie and eat Apple's/Microsoft's/etc's app store pies as well. Maybe they were from the beginning, what with the talk of Netscape being at war with Microsoft. The web is practically necessary to lead a normal life at this point. That people would focus not on taking the core of what makes the web actually matter for communication and as interfaces for the important services in our lives, making it simpler and more secure and more portable and easier to develop for, but instead on making it harder and harder to get down to that core, seems almost as wrong to me as banks in South Korea that require IE6. That's the kind of principle I'm talking about. I understand if you don't agree with me; a lot of people have a lot invested in the web these days. However, I also don't see why I should have to bite my tongue about it. @pyalot2 it's not FUD, because more code always means a larger attack surface, and OpenGL implementations happen to be a particularly large and historically poorly tested source of code. Bounds checking buffer accesses is an improvement but it doesn't magically make the implementations free of bugs. Check out this article from a while back on the state of OpenGL implementations for common chipsets used in Android devices, and tell me with a straight face you trust random webpages to talk to them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6450747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6450747
pavlov 13y ago
If a web site wants to murder your battery with graphics, it can already do it with an overload of CSS3 animations and reckless JavaScript drawing in Canvas elements...
CamperBob2 13y ago
Remind me again why web pages need the ability to display realtime 3D graphics? The answer is the same one that would have been given to people in 1991 who were asking why Gopher wasn't good enough.
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  Cute comparison, but it's not really fair. The web was quite obviously more useful than Gopher, while WebGL offers no improvements to the web for its most important tasks of being the standard tool for communication and the interface to most of humanity's services. Somehow the web managed to be "good enough" for those purposes for 20+ years without WebGL. I think a better comparison is to the Java applets of the late 90s and early 2000s: Cool demos, cool games, totally pointless and enormous security vulnerability. But hey, the Runescape devs made a lot of money off of their Java-applet MMO back in the day, and someone will probably do the same soon with WebGL, and that's what the web's all about.
  - bpafree 13y ago
    Webgl is very important to the development of data visualization, educational and scientific simulations and explorable explanations. There's a lot of room for interesting applications in this space. See redblob games for an example of what I mean specific to teaching game algorithms.
hrjet 13y ago
There exists a simple solution to WebGL spam: Click to play! Not having WebGL is not a feature.
nakedrobot2 13y ago
Panoramic images and panoramic (360) video, my career. It has always worked on the open web... except Apple. Fast forward a few years... any kind of AR or VR type content...

debt 13y ago

This is where I'm at. What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective? If a developer wants to create a game, I'll just use OpenGL or CoreGraphics to do it.

pyalot2 13y ago
The click trough rate from a website to a downloadable/appstorable package until it's installed, found, opened and used is around 1%. The click trough rate from a website to another website is around 50%. Writing a native application requires you to port that application to every conceivable app-store and platform in order to get it to run most places, this includes, but is not limited to: Writing it once in C++, once in ObjectiveC, once In java, package it for x86-64 windows classic, package it for x86-64 windows metro, once for x86 windows classic, x86 windows metro, Wart, Android, iOS, RPM, DEB, etc. A native app also requires you to come up with a solution to windowing (on windowing platforms, such as WGL, GLX etc.), sound (alsa, openal, directsound etc.), input (xinput (X), xinput or directinput (windows), cocoa (osx) etc.), etc. etc. It also requires you to come up with a solution on how to build guis, which a lot of games do these days by simply embedding webkit... It also requires you to come up with a solution to scripting, which is already built into browsers, but nevertheless, many embedd anglescript, lua, etc. Etc. etc. etc. Why do WebGL? Maybe think about that again, really carefully.
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  >What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective?
  - pyalot2 13y ago
    What's the point of doing a browser at all then? Or email? Or a new device? Or having a company in the first place? Or inventing anything? How can you tell a tech company is dead and done for? It's when they stop pushing the boundaries, when they stop serving their users, when they stop inventing, when they stop competing. Because, they think they can afford it, famous last words of countless once mighty giants.
    - ANTSANTS 13y ago
      That's more than a bit of a stretch. More like, Apple cares about the security of their sandbox and having exclusive control over the sale of software on their platform, and doesn't see the need to include a feature that a) practically guarantees security vulnerabilities, b) weakens their control over content for iOS, and c) users don't really care about at the moment. Jailbreakers have exploited vulnerabilities in FreeType of all things, but who cares, let's just give them more ammunition! I'm sure it will work out fine. Apple: Dead and done for because they made a sane decision. You heard it here first, folks.
      - jabits 13y ago
        Yes, things are perfect now. Don't change anything!
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Unity, SDL, Project Anarchy, Cocos2d-X, Marmalade, ...

pyrocat 13y ago

So... don't visit those sites?

ANTSANTS 13y ago
Oh ok, let's keep a gaping security vulnerability open in the one runtime that everyone demands the ability to shove heaps of untrusted code into, just so that people can see the occasional really cool demo that gets posted on HN every few months run at 10 FPS on their phone. There are holes in every graphics driver and OpenGL implementation out there (it's practically unavoidable, as it's a fairly low-level API). To expose that layer of an operating system to any random webpage a user clicks on is utter lunacy. "So don't visit those sites." That's like saying your operating system's security policy is "just don't go to bad sites and you won't get viruses!" @pavlov I'm not happy about CSS3 animations or the abundance of Javascript you see today either, but that doesn't excuse people to pile even more ridiculous and insecure crap onto "the browser."
- pyrocat 13y ago
  That's totally a legitimate criticism, and one that I hadn't heard before. Complaining about your phone's battery life when you can just as easily not visit the site has a lot less weight to it.
  - pyalot2 13y ago
    It's not legitimate criticism, because ARB_robustness exists. It's pure FUD.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - ANTSANTS 13y ago
    >That's totally a legitimate criticism I was adding it to my original comment when the driveby downvoters arrived. >Complaining about your phone's battery life when you can just as easily not visit the site has a lot less weight to it. Do you really think that advertisers won't latch on to WebGL if it becomes widely adopted? I'm not "complaining" about the possibility of seeing some WebGL on $game_site, I'm worried about the inevitability of the banner ads that I already can't block on my phone suddenly becoming filled with eyecatching, battery-wasting 3D graphics, just as banner ads these days already use CSS3 animations to the same effect. I don't see why that isn't a valid concern. Also, it's a matter of principle for me that apparently web developers don't agree with. I like the web as hypertext + the dumb terminal of our time. I don't see how things like WebGL benefit anybody but game developers and advertisers. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that sees the value in keeping the dumb terminal and the cross platform application API separate. We need both. There should be a simple way to run a game on all platforms (err, ignore for the moment that it already exists and is called SDL), and there should be some kind of easy-to-use "dumb" interface to society, but we're doing the world a disservice to combine the two. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think certain vested interests are determined to turn the former into the latter, because they want to have their advertising pie and eat Apple's/Microsoft's/etc's app store pies as well. Maybe they were from the beginning, what with the talk of Netscape being at war with Microsoft. The web is practically necessary to lead a normal life at this point. That people would focus not on taking the core of what makes the web actually matter for communication and as interfaces for the important services in our lives, making it simpler and more secure and more portable and easier to develop for, but instead on making it harder and harder to get down to that core, seems almost as wrong to me as banks in South Korea that require IE6. That's the kind of principle I'm talking about. I understand if you don't agree with me; a lot of people have a lot invested in the web these days. However, I also don't see why I should have to bite my tongue about it. @pyalot2 it's not FUD, because more code always means a larger attack surface, and OpenGL implementations happen to be a particularly large and historically poorly tested source of code. Bounds checking buffer accesses is an improvement but it doesn't magically make the implementations free of bugs. Check out this article from a while back on the state of OpenGL implementations for common chipsets used in Android devices, and tell me with a straight face you trust random webpages to talk to them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6450747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6450747

pavlov 13y ago

If a web site wants to murder your battery with graphics, it can already do it with an overload of CSS3 animations and reckless JavaScript drawing in Canvas elements...

CamperBob2 13y ago

Remind me again why web pages need the ability to display realtime 3D graphics? The answer is the same one that would have been given to people in 1991 who were asking why Gopher wasn't good enough.

ANTSANTS 13y ago
Cute comparison, but it's not really fair. The web was quite obviously more useful than Gopher, while WebGL offers no improvements to the web for its most important tasks of being the standard tool for communication and the interface to most of humanity's services. Somehow the web managed to be "good enough" for those purposes for 20+ years without WebGL. I think a better comparison is to the Java applets of the late 90s and early 2000s: Cool demos, cool games, totally pointless and enormous security vulnerability. But hey, the Runescape devs made a lot of money off of their Java-applet MMO back in the day, and someone will probably do the same soon with WebGL, and that's what the web's all about.
- bpafree 13y ago
  Webgl is very important to the development of data visualization, educational and scientific simulations and explorable explanations. There's a lot of room for interesting applications in this space. See redblob games for an example of what I mean specific to teaching game algorithms.

hrjet 13y ago

There exists a simple solution to WebGL spam: Click to play! Not having WebGL is not a feature.

nakedrobot2 13y ago

Panoramic images and panoramic (360) video, my career. It has always worked on the open web... except Apple. Fast forward a few years... any kind of AR or VR type content...