4 ms·

most of the development frameworks called native, are built on the precursor of html, namely 90s and earlier native app apis, on guis, and they arents perfect a

most of the development frameworks called native, are built on the precursor of html, namely 90s and earlier native app apis, on guis, and they arents perfect abstractions for apps neither. Current native zeitgeist gets its allure mostly from being closer to hardware and is the assembly to C. Otherwise all major mobile GUI APIs are naive attempts by busy developers to imitate, layouts, stylesheets,....

malandrew 12y ago
"precursor of html" please elaborate. HTML is based on XML, a language with two primitives, strings and children. Why would you ever use that as an interface if you want something to ever be performant? What we need is a retain-mode scene graph, where some of the nodes on the scene graph can be HTML documents (with URIs). Developers don't want a one-to-one relationship between the window object and documents. They instead want a one-to-many relationship. The <article> tag is proof of this. Take Twitter for example. What is each tweet, but a 140-character document? The application for displaying an infinite list of tweets is not a document, but a multi-document viewer. The Facebook feed is the same thing. If anything, this would prevent the shenanigans of blocking viewport resizing, because the user could choose an HTML document node on the scene graph and decide to make it full screen (the same way twitter allows you to click on a time stamp to get a permalink) This retain-mode scene graph would need to support URIs so that you could always link to a subgraph of the scene graph and only view that part.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > HTML is based on XML No, its not. HTML is based on SGML (it was originally an SGML application profile, though as of HTML5 it is no longer.) XML was invented after HMTL, was inspired by HTML, and is also an SGML application profile. So, insofar as XML and HTML are related all, its closer to the reverse of the relationship you describe.
  - malandrew 12y ago
    Thanks for the history lesson. My point about strings and children still stand though. SGML is a document markup language. It was never designed for complex scene graph work, so I don't get how the OP I responded to came to the conclusion that HTML derived from anything that was originally used for things like applications and GUIs.
- diminish 12y ago
  What I meant, was initially people were pixel-painting fixed screens and 2D/3D graphic programming evolved as one branch, and GUI app frameworks evolved as another (MacApp anyone?). If you look at earlier Mac/Windows/X app frameworks and iOS/Android app frameworks, you'll see that the latter is a more naive and easy solution to the same problem without the burden of multiple docs, windows and massive multitasking. I'm talking about windows, views, user interface controls, dialogs, textboxes, styling and finally inputs (events). HTML/CSS/JS is a string based natural solution to the same problem. Finally, current native programming does not get its power from any advanced technique or technology but only due to its privileged position in an underpowered computing device with a smaller screens and newer touch input methods and hardware. This way, mobile GUI API designers didn't have most of the problems of large screen OS framework API designers had. When I look at their APIs, they are too simple, nothing fundamentally new. So as mobile devices get better in general computing, a post html world may come back, with stringified description of UI elements.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    Developers that enjoyed access to Xerox PARC systems, RAD tooling, and environments like NeXTStep already had access to much better hypertext systems with layout support.
    - malandrew 12y ago
      Do you have any good links/articles/discussions on these systems? I've read a bit about the origins of NeXTStep, but the work at PARC is something I know little about and RAD tooling is something completely new to me.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        Self http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 Xerox Star User Interface http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODZBL80JPqw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODZBL80JPqw Tektronix 4404 Smalltalk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxCJfayW-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxCJfayW-8 The Smalltalk-80 Programming System http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLPiMl8XUKU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLPiMl8XUKU The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw Symbolics Hypertext Document http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxYj32cvoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxYj32cvoE Warren Teitelman work at Xerox PARC https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7579613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7579613 The Mesa/Cedar programming environment https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fbitsavers.trailing-edge.com%2Fpdf%2Fxerox%2Fparc%2FtechReports%2FCSL-83-11_The_Cedar_Programming_Environment_A_Midterm_Report_and_Examination.pdf https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fbitsavers.... Steve Jobs internal demo of NeXTSTEP 3, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk Alan Kay on Xerox PARC work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oonXT-gYjU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oonXT-gYjU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y43fI7Dy04A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y43fI7Dy04A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QJTsPQQCCc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QJTsPQQCCc

malandrew 12y ago

"precursor of html" please elaborate. HTML is based on XML, a language with two primitives, strings and children. Why would you ever use that as an interface if you want something to ever be performant? What we need is a retain-mode scene graph, where some of the nodes on the scene graph can be HTML documents (with URIs). Developers don't want a one-to-one relationship between the window object and documents. They instead want a one-to-many relationship. The <article> tag is proof of this. Take Twitter for example. What is each tweet, but a 140-character document? The application for displaying an infinite list of tweets is not a document, but a multi-document viewer. The Facebook feed is the same thing. If anything, this would prevent the shenanigans of blocking viewport resizing, because the user could choose an HTML document node on the scene graph and decide to make it full screen (the same way twitter allows you to click on a time stamp to get a permalink) This retain-mode scene graph would need to support URIs so that you could always link to a subgraph of the scene graph and only view that part.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> HTML is based on XML No, its not. HTML is based on SGML (it was originally an SGML application profile, though as of HTML5 it is no longer.) XML was invented after HMTL, was inspired by HTML, and is also an SGML application profile. So, insofar as XML and HTML are related all, its closer to the reverse of the relationship you describe.
- malandrew 12y ago
  Thanks for the history lesson. My point about strings and children still stand though. SGML is a document markup language. It was never designed for complex scene graph work, so I don't get how the OP I responded to came to the conclusion that HTML derived from anything that was originally used for things like applications and GUIs.
diminish 12y ago
What I meant, was initially people were pixel-painting fixed screens and 2D/3D graphic programming evolved as one branch, and GUI app frameworks evolved as another (MacApp anyone?). If you look at earlier Mac/Windows/X app frameworks and iOS/Android app frameworks, you'll see that the latter is a more naive and easy solution to the same problem without the burden of multiple docs, windows and massive multitasking. I'm talking about windows, views, user interface controls, dialogs, textboxes, styling and finally inputs (events). HTML/CSS/JS is a string based natural solution to the same problem. Finally, current native programming does not get its power from any advanced technique or technology but only due to its privileged position in an underpowered computing device with a smaller screens and newer touch input methods and hardware. This way, mobile GUI API designers didn't have most of the problems of large screen OS framework API designers had. When I look at their APIs, they are too simple, nothing fundamentally new. So as mobile devices get better in general computing, a post html world may come back, with stringified description of UI elements.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Developers that enjoyed access to Xerox PARC systems, RAD tooling, and environments like NeXTStep already had access to much better hypertext systems with layout support.
  - malandrew 12y ago
    Do you have any good links/articles/discussions on these systems? I've read a bit about the origins of NeXTStep, but the work at PARC is something I know little about and RAD tooling is something completely new to me.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      Self http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 Xerox Star User Interface http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODZBL80JPqw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODZBL80JPqw Tektronix 4404 Smalltalk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxCJfayW-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxCJfayW-8 The Smalltalk-80 Programming System http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLPiMl8XUKU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLPiMl8XUKU The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw Symbolics Hypertext Document http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxYj32cvoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxYj32cvoE Warren Teitelman work at Xerox PARC https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7579613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7579613 The Mesa/Cedar programming environment https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fbitsavers.trailing-edge.com%2Fpdf%2Fxerox%2Fparc%2FtechReports%2FCSL-83-11_The_Cedar_Programming_Environment_A_Midterm_Report_and_Examination.pdf https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fbitsavers.... Steve Jobs internal demo of NeXTSTEP 3, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk Alan Kay on Xerox PARC work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oonXT-gYjU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oonXT-gYjU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y43fI7Dy04A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y43fI7Dy04A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QJTsPQQCCc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QJTsPQQCCc