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> people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. I think this is what happe

> people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. I think this is what happened. Everyone can agree that there are many examples of extreme over-engineering on the modern web, but sites like gmail, facebook, youtube, twitch, google docs etc, by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful. Concerns about privacy and ads have made us wary of these trends on the web, but from a purely functional perspective, the modern web has achieved incredible technical feats compared to what was possible in 1995. > Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. Yes, there is a lot of junk on the web, and yes, it "kind of works", but this is true of all software on all systems. There are plenty of compatibility issues with native software across operating systems, there's also plenty of junk software on the desktop and in mobile app stores. All software is crap and the web is no different, but it isn't especially crappy, it's just that we see a lot more crap on the web because visiting a URL is a lot easier, safer, and more discoverable than executing arbitrary binaries.

jblow 11y ago
> by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful Yeah no. If you had gone back to 1995 and told me that gmail was what you would get when I have a supercomputer in my pocket, a super-super computer on my desk, and all web pages are served by SUPER-super-super computers, I would have quit the industry out of depression. It is some horrible bullshit when you look at it in perspective. About the quality issue, no surprise that I also disagree there: the web is especially crappy. I do not consider any piece of software that I use to be performing acceptably (native or web), but there is a stark difference between the native apps and the web apps, in that the native ones are at least kind of close to performing acceptably, and also tend to be a lot more robust. Web apps not working is just the way of life for the web. Any time I fill out a new web form I expect to have to fill it out three times because of some random BS or another. Look at all the engineers employed by Facebook and especially Twitter. WHAT DO MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE EVEN DO? Obviously the average productivity, in terms of software functionality per employee per year, is historically low, devastatingly low. What is going on exactly??

jblow 11y ago

> by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful Yeah no. If you had gone back to 1995 and told me that gmail was what you would get when I have a supercomputer in my pocket, a super-super computer on my desk, and all web pages are served by SUPER-super-super computers, I would have quit the industry out of depression. It is some horrible bullshit when you look at it in perspective. About the quality issue, no surprise that I also disagree there: the web is especially crappy. I do not consider any piece of software that I use to be performing acceptably (native or web), but there is a stark difference between the native apps and the web apps, in that the native ones are at least kind of close to performing acceptably, and also tend to be a lot more robust. Web apps not working is just the way of life for the web. Any time I fill out a new web form I expect to have to fill it out three times because of some random BS or another. Look at all the engineers employed by Facebook and especially Twitter. WHAT DO MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE EVEN DO? Obviously the average productivity, in terms of software functionality per employee per year, is historically low, devastatingly low. What is going on exactly??