5 ms·

Yep, the model of HTML-CSS-DOM-JS implies extreme overhead, and only heroic efforts and thousands of man-years of work and optimization have made it bearable.

Yep, the model of HTML-CSS-DOM-JS implies extreme overhead, and only heroic efforts and thousands of man-years of work and optimization have made it bearable. I'm saying this as I have compared the performance of a simple local web page with a simple view with the same exact functionality rendered with my pet naive unoptimized UI engine and the latter was blazingly fast compared to HTML. So I guess you are right, we definitely need something less cluttered and more efficient than HTML+CSS+JS.

BurningFrog 12y ago
Yeah, it feels like we're slowly approaching what we could do with native programs 20 years ago.
angersock 12y ago
Compare how easy it is to make web pages with just HTML+CSS+JS, especially for a beginner, with any other framework, native code or no. The separation of structured markup, display theming, and custom logic is remarkably powerful, and everyone saying otherwise is just plain wrong if you look at history. Once you start doing anything outside of your simple page with a simple view (which was what, incidentally?), your engine starts to accrue features that move it in "bloat" towards a modern web browser. The link mentions "Hey, this is really useful on mobile"--and I would consider that a failing of the mobile vendors browser teams, not a problem with the web. This looks really flashy for the sort of static content + basic animations + interactions the author is showing off, but once you start handling further interaction--like, you know, building a virtual dom to render to the webgl texture, all you're doing is reinventing the facilities the browser already gives you, but instead behind one more layer of abstraction. tl,dr; web developers never learn.
- perdunov 12y ago
  Well, I'm a beginner in web, and I can't say it's easy, in fact, it's quite the opposite. In native frameworks there's normally one idiomatic way to do things, while the web framework land looks terrifying. Actually, my pet UI engine was powerful enough so that I've implemented a complete mobile application in it. I'd also tried HTML, but it just wasn't competitive. The native iOS UI was even faster and was miles ahead of HTML in terms of speed. Also, there is such thing as Qt Quick, where you can basically write in reactive JavaScript, it is at least as powerful as HTML-CSS-JS, and it is still way faster. The web has started from something that obviously wasn't designed for performance and has come a long way of incremental evolution. Given this, and given that I know how hard it is to make a fast UI engine as powerful as web, the current web performance is actually spectacular. But still, there are better models, and there can be even better models.
  - angersock 12y ago
    Well, I'm a beginner in web, and I can't say it's easy, in fact, it's quite the opposite. In native frameworks there's normally one idiomatic way to do things, while the web framework land looks terrifying. So, that's part of the problem, right? For some damn fool reason we keep throwing beginners at frameworks--they should be starting with just bsaic HTML and CSS, and then learning JS, and only then moving on to frameworks. It's so damned confusing in part because people aren't learning the fundamentals, and so are lacking a mental model of how things work and what makes them slow. I'd also tried HTML, but it just wasn't competitive. The native iOS UI was even faster and was miles ahead of HTML in terms of speed. Show me some numbers. If you want to talk about performance, then let's be quantitative. I'm also willing to wager that the HTML on the mobile device was full of bits you didn't need. But still, there are better models, and there can be even better models. Again, why do you think this is the case? It's worked, with expansion, for over twenty years. That's a staying power few technological approaches have--maybe, there's something to it. This notion of "better models" really frequently boils down to "I have this one specific thing I need done, and anything that doesn't match this one specific thing is superterribad and clearly needs replacing." If you want the best performance (which honestly probably doesn't matter that much for your use case), write things in native code as you've done. But don't then pretend that that is a valid yardstick to measure an entirely different tech by.
    - perdunov 12y ago
      For some damn fool reason we keep throwing beginners at frameworks--they should be starting with just basic HTML and CSS, and then learning JS, and only then moving on to frameworks. It's so damned confusing in part because people aren't learning the fundamentals, and so are lacking a mental model of how things work and what makes them slow. Actually, I've been familiar with HTML+CSS+JS for a long time. The vanilla web is just not very practical for creating full-fledged web apps, especially given that there are so many frameworks that have a lot of things out of the box. Also, the vanilla web misses some features that are essential, such as the reactivity (binding). Show me some numbers. If you want to talk about performance, then let's be quantitative. I'm also willing to wager that the HTML on the mobile device was full of bits you didn't need. The last time I tried you wouldn't need numbers, as my pet engine did steady 60 FPS full-screen animations, while the iOS web view pathetically presented something closer to a slideshow, Android did better, but still not smooth enough. And the page loading was visible instead of instantaneous display with the native stuff. Of course, faster devices alleviate the problem. >But still, there are better models, and there can be even better models. Again, why do you think this is the case? Because I've developed my own thing similar to what HTML+CSS+JS do, and I could clearly realize that you can do the same things with a much simpler model that also happens to work faster. Also, there are existing native frameworks that are examples of this. It's quite clear that the web wasn't originally designed to be used how it's currently used and practical web apps are built with basically hacks over hacks and hack-based frameworks. Obviously, getting rid of all that clutter accumulated by incremental evolution would make a difference.
- phn 12y ago
  I agree that in theory, that separation is sound. But in practice, it seems no one uses it like that, and we find ourselves constantly fighting against that purity. e.g. adding extra divs just so I can center one bit of text the way I want to.

BurningFrog 12y ago

Yeah, it feels like we're slowly approaching what we could do with native programs 20 years ago.

angersock 12y ago

Compare how easy it is to make web pages with just HTML+CSS+JS, especially for a beginner, with any other framework, native code or no. The separation of structured markup, display theming, and custom logic is remarkably powerful, and everyone saying otherwise is just plain wrong if you look at history. Once you start doing anything outside of your simple page with a simple view (which was what, incidentally?), your engine starts to accrue features that move it in "bloat" towards a modern web browser. The link mentions "Hey, this is really useful on mobile"--and I would consider that a failing of the mobile vendors browser teams, not a problem with the web. This looks really flashy for the sort of static content + basic animations + interactions the author is showing off, but once you start handling further interaction--like, you know, building a virtual dom to render to the webgl texture, all you're doing is reinventing the facilities the browser already gives you, but instead behind one more layer of abstraction. tl,dr; web developers never learn.

perdunov 12y ago
Well, I'm a beginner in web, and I can't say it's easy, in fact, it's quite the opposite. In native frameworks there's normally one idiomatic way to do things, while the web framework land looks terrifying. Actually, my pet UI engine was powerful enough so that I've implemented a complete mobile application in it. I'd also tried HTML, but it just wasn't competitive. The native iOS UI was even faster and was miles ahead of HTML in terms of speed. Also, there is such thing as Qt Quick, where you can basically write in reactive JavaScript, it is at least as powerful as HTML-CSS-JS, and it is still way faster. The web has started from something that obviously wasn't designed for performance and has come a long way of incremental evolution. Given this, and given that I know how hard it is to make a fast UI engine as powerful as web, the current web performance is actually spectacular. But still, there are better models, and there can be even better models.
- angersock 12y ago
  Well, I'm a beginner in web, and I can't say it's easy, in fact, it's quite the opposite. In native frameworks there's normally one idiomatic way to do things, while the web framework land looks terrifying. So, that's part of the problem, right? For some damn fool reason we keep throwing beginners at frameworks--they should be starting with just bsaic HTML and CSS, and then learning JS, and only then moving on to frameworks. It's so damned confusing in part because people aren't learning the fundamentals, and so are lacking a mental model of how things work and what makes them slow. I'd also tried HTML, but it just wasn't competitive. The native iOS UI was even faster and was miles ahead of HTML in terms of speed. Show me some numbers. If you want to talk about performance, then let's be quantitative. I'm also willing to wager that the HTML on the mobile device was full of bits you didn't need. But still, there are better models, and there can be even better models. Again, why do you think this is the case? It's worked, with expansion, for over twenty years. That's a staying power few technological approaches have--maybe, there's something to it. This notion of "better models" really frequently boils down to "I have this one specific thing I need done, and anything that doesn't match this one specific thing is superterribad and clearly needs replacing." If you want the best performance (which honestly probably doesn't matter that much for your use case), write things in native code as you've done. But don't then pretend that that is a valid yardstick to measure an entirely different tech by.
  - perdunov 12y ago
    For some damn fool reason we keep throwing beginners at frameworks--they should be starting with just basic HTML and CSS, and then learning JS, and only then moving on to frameworks. It's so damned confusing in part because people aren't learning the fundamentals, and so are lacking a mental model of how things work and what makes them slow. Actually, I've been familiar with HTML+CSS+JS for a long time. The vanilla web is just not very practical for creating full-fledged web apps, especially given that there are so many frameworks that have a lot of things out of the box. Also, the vanilla web misses some features that are essential, such as the reactivity (binding). Show me some numbers. If you want to talk about performance, then let's be quantitative. I'm also willing to wager that the HTML on the mobile device was full of bits you didn't need. The last time I tried you wouldn't need numbers, as my pet engine did steady 60 FPS full-screen animations, while the iOS web view pathetically presented something closer to a slideshow, Android did better, but still not smooth enough. And the page loading was visible instead of instantaneous display with the native stuff. Of course, faster devices alleviate the problem. >But still, there are better models, and there can be even better models. Again, why do you think this is the case? Because I've developed my own thing similar to what HTML+CSS+JS do, and I could clearly realize that you can do the same things with a much simpler model that also happens to work faster. Also, there are existing native frameworks that are examples of this. It's quite clear that the web wasn't originally designed to be used how it's currently used and practical web apps are built with basically hacks over hacks and hack-based frameworks. Obviously, getting rid of all that clutter accumulated by incremental evolution would make a difference.
phn 12y ago
I agree that in theory, that separation is sound. But in practice, it seems no one uses it like that, and we find ourselves constantly fighting against that purity. e.g. adding extra divs just so I can center one bit of text the way I want to.