7 ms·

Gridbox and Flexbox largely make layouts sane again.

giblaz 9y ago
This to both. However, the problem with the web is there are old implementations that must be maintained in browsers for backwards compatibility. The issue with this is that it increases the barrier to entry for web development because it's much harder for a new person to even know what options to gravitate to. Of course, there are books and guides to help people, but how would someone figure out which guides are worth it? There are a lot of highly rated books on the topic of web development and if you don't already know what you need, it can be daunting. But yes, flexbox is great.
- spynxic 9y ago
  For the sake of creativity, suppose browsers were the wrong direction to take for web exploration. What do we do now? The same idea may be applied to an operating system's ability to allow a user to operate on their machine. Edit: It would be useful to consider why the need for a universal interface to the internet was originally sought out.
  - webjprgm 9y ago
    Telnet? That's the alternative I can remember.
    - kbutler 9y ago
      Gopher!
  - rident 9y ago
    Douglas Crockford would say The Seif Project: http://seif.place/ http://seif.place/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQWRoLf7bns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQWRoLf7bns
- azernik 9y ago
  The old implementations are going away a lot faster than any greenfield environment can totally replace the browser.
bayonetz 9y ago
True but it's crazy that it took 20 years to get sane layout control.
- thecrazyone 9y ago
  Well _it is_ crazy. We can't trace an alternate history and work with that. We work with what we have. I think, here, we might looking at it with the wrong lens. I'm unable to find the right words to say this. Let me say this statement feels ungrateful. Web is the largest and fastest growing ecosystem of software we've right now (refer: community size, number of projects on github, say, in Javascipt, CSS, and other web technologies). You're comparing what is what should've been. By that measure, any human activity will fall short of not only yours but anybody's expectations. You'd think that getting sane layout control is easy, but apparently it's not. Getting a lot of humans to agree on a fast growing technology is hard (it seems like). PS: I'm not saying "nothing could've been better, be happy with what you have", not at all. I'm just saying this seems like complaining and a better approach is to try and make it better I needn't have written up a long tirade for such a simple statement. I see that this is the same sentiment that's espoused by several others in this thread, and thought I'd try and provide a different perspective to look at this with edit: formatting
  - vinnymac 9y ago
    Your perspective is very interesting to me. It makes me think that as software gets better/easier to write, as web development has become lately, people want to question why it is becoming better/easier. I think this self-reflection we have all been doing on the web is what is causing people to post so many threads and articles with this being the topic.
  - mike_hearn 9y ago
    Sane layout control for apps was a solved problem 15 years ago (well, for some definition of sane). Look at toolkits like Swing, GTK2, Qt, heck even Cocoa has better layout control for apps than HTML. Flexbox is essentially an import of those concepts to CSS. There are no new ideas there. But now flip it around and try to make a beautiful, responsive document in Swing or GTK. The layout managers that make them so great for laying out UIs won't help you much there. They can do it, they have layout managers that operate somewhat like a CSS box flow, but it won't be as natural or as easy. So it's worth considering if it's easier to evolve HTML towards sane layout management for app-like things, or GUI toolkits towards sane layout management for document-like things.

This to both. However, the problem with the web is there are old implementations that must be maintained in browsers for backwards compatibility. The issue with this is that it increases the barrier to entry for web development because it's much harder for a new person to even know what options to gravitate to. Of course, there are books and guides to help people, but how would someone figure out which guides are worth it? There are a lot of highly rated books on the topic of web development and if you don't already know what you need, it can be daunting. But yes, flexbox is great.

spynxic 9y ago
For the sake of creativity, suppose browsers were the wrong direction to take for web exploration. What do we do now? The same idea may be applied to an operating system's ability to allow a user to operate on their machine. Edit: It would be useful to consider why the need for a universal interface to the internet was originally sought out.
- webjprgm 9y ago
  Telnet? That's the alternative I can remember.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    Gopher!
- rident 9y ago
  Douglas Crockford would say The Seif Project: http://seif.place/ http://seif.place/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQWRoLf7bns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQWRoLf7bns
azernik 9y ago
The old implementations are going away a lot faster than any greenfield environment can totally replace the browser.

bayonetz 9y ago

True but it's crazy that it took 20 years to get sane layout control.

thecrazyone 9y ago
Well _it is_ crazy. We can't trace an alternate history and work with that. We work with what we have. I think, here, we might looking at it with the wrong lens. I'm unable to find the right words to say this. Let me say this statement feels ungrateful. Web is the largest and fastest growing ecosystem of software we've right now (refer: community size, number of projects on github, say, in Javascipt, CSS, and other web technologies). You're comparing what is what should've been. By that measure, any human activity will fall short of not only yours but anybody's expectations. You'd think that getting sane layout control is easy, but apparently it's not. Getting a lot of humans to agree on a fast growing technology is hard (it seems like). PS: I'm not saying "nothing could've been better, be happy with what you have", not at all. I'm just saying this seems like complaining and a better approach is to try and make it better I needn't have written up a long tirade for such a simple statement. I see that this is the same sentiment that's espoused by several others in this thread, and thought I'd try and provide a different perspective to look at this with edit: formatting
- vinnymac 9y ago
  Your perspective is very interesting to me. It makes me think that as software gets better/easier to write, as web development has become lately, people want to question why it is becoming better/easier. I think this self-reflection we have all been doing on the web is what is causing people to post so many threads and articles with this being the topic.
- mike_hearn 9y ago
  Sane layout control for apps was a solved problem 15 years ago (well, for some definition of sane). Look at toolkits like Swing, GTK2, Qt, heck even Cocoa has better layout control for apps than HTML. Flexbox is essentially an import of those concepts to CSS. There are no new ideas there. But now flip it around and try to make a beautiful, responsive document in Swing or GTK. The layout managers that make them so great for laying out UIs won't help you much there. They can do it, they have layout managers that operate somewhat like a CSS box flow, but it won't be as natural or as easy. So it's worth considering if it's easier to evolve HTML towards sane layout management for app-like things, or GUI toolkits towards sane layout management for document-like things.