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The hype around HTML/JS as a substitute or replacement for native development has little to do with developer laziness and more to do with commoditizing softwar

The hype around HTML/JS as a substitute or replacement for native development has little to do with developer laziness and more to do with commoditizing software development labor. Native is hard relative to (the nearly thoughtless) slapping together of JS and CSS frameworks to "build" an "app." It requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.

pjmlp 12y ago
I have lots of UI toolkits under my belt since the mid-80's, been doing web development on and off since the .com days. When compared with RAD tooling like Delphi or XAML, HTML/CSS/JS is anything but easy.
- gagege 12y ago
  Even WinForms is a breeze compared to all the quirks of the web.
  - organsnyder 12y ago
    Web becomes a lot easier when you limit your target platforms. If you're shipping a thin browser-based shell around a web app and you know that you need to target Android 2.0+, iOS 6+, and Windows Phone 7, then you already know that you can eliminate many rendering engines (Firefox, Opera) as well as some of the old browser versions (IE < 10) that are usually the most problematic.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      Try to explain to customers holding payments, why the web page looks different across multiple handsets using the same browser.
jekrb 12y ago
Which is also a problem for web. Compared to writing native apps you can get away with much more. You can be asked to help in projects where css like this was already written: #updates > span > table > tbody > tr > td > span People who have never heard of specificity or modularity start writing code that will run on thousands of browsers, and in turn those users experience a slower web. The other side of that mess is when developers with more experience thoroughly plan out the architecture of the web app, to ensure it operates on a performance budget and the user experience stays positive. Just as native apps, this also requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.
dshaw7 12y ago
Commoditization is one aspect and that may be the case in some situations. Having helped many organizations understand how to build JavaScript applications across a bunch of different platforms, from my experience what they are trying to do is improve their ability to iterate and remain responsive to user needs across all the devices users want to interact with. As a user, I expect and prioritize applications and experiences that are available to me wherever I choose to use the service. Web stack tech is facilitating this.
smacktoward 12y ago
You make it sound like there's no benefit to programmers to consolidating around a single platform. But there are several: - It removes the risk of spending time and money learning what turns out to be the "wrong" (i.e. an unsuccessful) platform - It avoids splitting the effort of tooling vendors, library authors, etc. across many different platforms, reducing the amount of redundant effort spent reimplementing things in platform Y that already exist in platform X and freeing them up to work on unique ideas instead - It brings the largest possible number of people underneath one umbrella, which makes that community more economically attractive and therefore increases the number and quality of tools and services they have access to Not that it's all sunshine and roses, of course, but it's not without advantages.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  All of your points apply to webdev. They just take a different form, and frequently are masked by mistaking the ease with which trivial apps can be developed by mixing a few canned frameworks together for reduced complexity.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  You can have all of that without a CSS/HTML/JavaScript Frankenstein.

pjmlp 12y ago

I have lots of UI toolkits under my belt since the mid-80's, been doing web development on and off since the .com days. When compared with RAD tooling like Delphi or XAML, HTML/CSS/JS is anything but easy.

gagege 12y ago
Even WinForms is a breeze compared to all the quirks of the web.
- organsnyder 12y ago
  Web becomes a lot easier when you limit your target platforms. If you're shipping a thin browser-based shell around a web app and you know that you need to target Android 2.0+, iOS 6+, and Windows Phone 7, then you already know that you can eliminate many rendering engines (Firefox, Opera) as well as some of the old browser versions (IE < 10) that are usually the most problematic.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    Try to explain to customers holding payments, why the web page looks different across multiple handsets using the same browser.

jekrb 12y ago

Which is also a problem for web. Compared to writing native apps you can get away with much more. You can be asked to help in projects where css like this was already written: #updates > span > table > tbody > tr > td > span People who have never heard of specificity or modularity start writing code that will run on thousands of browsers, and in turn those users experience a slower web. The other side of that mess is when developers with more experience thoroughly plan out the architecture of the web app, to ensure it operates on a performance budget and the user experience stays positive. Just as native apps, this also requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.

dshaw7 12y ago

Commoditization is one aspect and that may be the case in some situations. Having helped many organizations understand how to build JavaScript applications across a bunch of different platforms, from my experience what they are trying to do is improve their ability to iterate and remain responsive to user needs across all the devices users want to interact with. As a user, I expect and prioritize applications and experiences that are available to me wherever I choose to use the service. Web stack tech is facilitating this.

smacktoward 12y ago

You make it sound like there's no benefit to programmers to consolidating around a single platform. But there are several: - It removes the risk of spending time and money learning what turns out to be the "wrong" (i.e. an unsuccessful) platform - It avoids splitting the effort of tooling vendors, library authors, etc. across many different platforms, reducing the amount of redundant effort spent reimplementing things in platform Y that already exist in platform X and freeing them up to work on unique ideas instead - It brings the largest possible number of people underneath one umbrella, which makes that community more economically attractive and therefore increases the number and quality of tools and services they have access to Not that it's all sunshine and roses, of course, but it's not without advantages.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago
All of your points apply to webdev. They just take a different form, and frequently are masked by mistaking the ease with which trivial apps can be developed by mixing a few canned frameworks together for reduced complexity.
pjmlp 12y ago
You can have all of that without a CSS/HTML/JavaScript Frankenstein.