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The cool thing about many of these features is that I can push out some code that I can share with a hyperlink and other people can run it without installing an

The cool thing about many of these features is that I can push out some code that I can share with a hyperlink and other people can run it without installing anything other than a browser. The authoring experience is still terrible. And the user experience still requires hopping over the secret, invisible wall into developer-tools land... but the potential is there. If you're savvy enough to open your web console and view source you can mess around with some code I wrote to demonstrate some fundamental procedural algorithms[0]. I chose Javascript and <canvas> because everyone has a Javascript interpreter and most browsers today support <canvas>. If I had chosen to demonstrate these algorithms in Python, for example, I'd have to expect my reader to download and install a Python interpreter for their system, download or copy/paste my examples, and load them into their REPL before they could start playing around. The browser experience requires fewer steps. A moratorium would be a welcome change of pace, IMO. It'd be nice to close the gap between the user and the developer and between document, code, and media. It'd be nice if authoring tools for these environments could catch up with the available features. On the other side of the coin the proposed common byte-code format is really exciting and practical for all sorts of reasons -- in the case of my aforementioned blog post I think there are better languages to teach with than Javascript and having that language be available as a first-class citizen in any web document would be a boon. I think some features would still be worth pursuing in favor of others. [0] http://agentultra.com/2015/06/24/introduction-to-procedural-algorithms/ http://agentultra.com/2015/06/24/introduction-to-procedural-...

romaniv 11y ago
The cool thing about many of these features is that I can push out some code that I can share with a hyperlink and other people can run it without installing anything other than a browser. What you describe is a hack for lacking isolation/security/permissions/package management in the operating system. Seriously, if there was a sensible way of isolating apps and handling dependencies, it would be perfectly sensible to implement a lot of the current web "apps" as real applications.
- agentultra 11y ago
  What I was attempting to describe was a document format the freely mixes code, documentation, and interactive media. The present set of features in the browser allows for a very fluid mixing of these elements but the authoring tools and user experience are lacking in most browsers. I can share similar documents via org-babel, iPython notebooks, or Matlab notebooks, etc... but each requires the user to be accustomed with those applications to install them, fetch my code from a URL, load it into their environment, etc. With the present browser ecosystem they can fetch everything as a single document and run the interactive examples and modify code on the fly... if they're willing to hop over the developer-tools wall.
Aleman360 11y ago
> The cool thing about many of these features is that I can push out some code that I can share with a hyperlink and other people can run it without installing anything other than a browser. Both Windows and Mac have app stores now. Installing apps is a one-click affair, and you can even send URL's to them (in Windows 10 at least). Most of the Windows 10 apps are only a couple MB. That's less than the typical media-heavy website.

romaniv 11y ago

The cool thing about many of these features is that I can push out some code that I can share with a hyperlink and other people can run it without installing anything other than a browser. What you describe is a hack for lacking isolation/security/permissions/package management in the operating system. Seriously, if there was a sensible way of isolating apps and handling dependencies, it would be perfectly sensible to implement a lot of the current web "apps" as real applications.

agentultra 11y ago
What I was attempting to describe was a document format the freely mixes code, documentation, and interactive media. The present set of features in the browser allows for a very fluid mixing of these elements but the authoring tools and user experience are lacking in most browsers. I can share similar documents via org-babel, iPython notebooks, or Matlab notebooks, etc... but each requires the user to be accustomed with those applications to install them, fetch my code from a URL, load it into their environment, etc. With the present browser ecosystem they can fetch everything as a single document and run the interactive examples and modify code on the fly... if they're willing to hop over the developer-tools wall.

Aleman360 11y ago

> The cool thing about many of these features is that I can push out some code that I can share with a hyperlink and other people can run it without installing anything other than a browser. Both Windows and Mac have app stores now. Installing apps is a one-click affair, and you can even send URL's to them (in Windows 10 at least). Most of the Windows 10 apps are only a couple MB. That's less than the typical media-heavy website.