7 ms·

Exactly, HTML would be amazing if people weren't trying to use browsers as application runtime environments.

by swiley 5y ago

rchaud 5y ago
So we shouldn't have had Youtube, Vimeo etc. until W3C got around to making <video> part of the official spec in 2010? The web is great because people kept pushing its limits and weren't arbitrarily held back by bureaucrats. Even though Apple and Google have spent untold billions to push the "there's an app for that" line of thinking, the web has survived.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  We had them, it was a matter of installing Real, Flash and Quicktime plugins.
- p2p_astroturf 5y ago
  Your insane perspective and the fact that it is common, is why the internet sucks. 1. Youtube is just a generic video hoster, of which many came before, during, and will come after. As for the whole "pretend Youtube is a thing" thing, I can't remember one actual good video from a "content creator" ever. It's all circle jerking and quick videos on a topic based on least effort. 2. <video> tag has never had a single good implementation. They are all bugged and 100x slower/clunkier than using the built in menu on a CRT TV from the early 90s. 3. Yes, the web would be better if it was just static content. Even without <video> tag. The primary use of a <video> tag is clickbait (actually, almost nobody uses a <video> tag because they don't want to host video, and instead use a youtube embed, so <video> is not even used in practice). For anything else, like movies, porn, etc, it's 1000x more convenient to just download the video and watch it offline in a real video player like MPV. Web browsers still cannot even turn off that stupid "you are now in full screen" banner at the top of the screen, which fortifies my point that <video> is not good for what it is intended for: short one-off clips scattered throughout web pages. 4. The whole idea that it's hard to have a video tag is a product of licesnsing braindamage and the clusterfuck of video encoding standards. 5. The web is not great, and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Using a god damn terminal emulator (the most braindamaged obsolete shit in the world) is 1000x more pleasant than using a web browser.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
azangru 5y ago
So write an application multiple times in multiple languages, package it into different packages, and distribute them through app stores? Oh, and desktop Linux users are out of luck because their market share is so tiny, and their distros are so numerous and chaotic that no-one is going to bother spending time and money on building applications for those poor sods. Is this the idea?
- choeger 5y ago
  Which step in that process could not be automated? What's so fucking difficult on either writing a Cross-Platform UI or using a Cross-Platform framework? <rant> Is it not instead the case that today's hipster developers simply want to ignore that platforms exist beside their fancy McBooks? Is it not the case that today's developers prefer a bizarre interpreted untyped language simply because that's what they learned for building websites and they don't want to put up the effort to understand what a type system is? Is it not true that the same developers pull in dependencies reflexivly and never consider long-term maintenance, let alone such weird concepts like supply chain security? And finally did not some hip leaders invent the microservice architecture to cater to these idiots? Because it's nowadays simpler to have a huge, inefficient, pile of services that hides all complexity in the communication between these services than to have one well-designed, efficient system? </rant> Sorry for the rant, but sometimes I feel like the industry is actually regressing because many developers are simply lazy morons that hide behind buzzwords.
  - d3ckard 5y ago
    Buzzwords like type system?
  - jansommer 5y ago
    Please suggest a cross platform framework that doesn't come with accessibility issues, that also allows you to create as rich ui's like what you can do in a browser, and without various licenses that restrict what you can do with your code? Something that supports Android, iOS, Linux, Windows and MacOS.
linguae 5y ago
I don’t have much experience with web development, but lately I’ve been wondering, though, if those using browsers as application runtime environments should go all the way and eschew the DOM in favor of presenting a GUI in a WebGL canvas? Theoretically, the combination of WebGL and Webassembly may be an attractive platform for developing cross-platform applications. We already have Electron apps, but instead of using HTML+CSS+JavaScript, we use tools inspired by desktop GUI development tools that render to a WebGL canvas and compile to Webassembly?
- tekromancr 5y ago
  Sure, one /could/ do that. And most web based games do that but then you have to re-invent a whole bunch of stuff. Scrolling, text layout, accessibility hooks, etc.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Or have a Google team size, https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-Canvas-Based-Rendering-Update.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-...
- kaba0 5y ago
  That already exists, but it would also mean the end of end-user customizations. As mentioned by sibling poster, accessibility would be nonexistent, but one also could not use adblockers, copy text, etc.

Exactly, HTML would be amazing if people weren't trying to use browsers as application runtime environments.

by swiley 5y ago

Exactly, HTML would be amazing if people weren't trying to use browsers as application runtime environments.

So we shouldn't have had Youtube, Vimeo etc. until W3C got around to making <video> part of the official spec in 2010? The web is great because people kept pushing its limits and weren't arbitrarily held back by bureaucrats. Even though Apple and Google have spent untold billions to push the "there's an app for that" line of thinking, the web has survived.

pjmlp 5y ago
We had them, it was a matter of installing Real, Flash and Quicktime plugins.
p2p_astroturf 5y ago
Your insane perspective and the fact that it is common, is why the internet sucks. 1. Youtube is just a generic video hoster, of which many came before, during, and will come after. As for the whole "pretend Youtube is a thing" thing, I can't remember one actual good video from a "content creator" ever. It's all circle jerking and quick videos on a topic based on least effort. 2. <video> tag has never had a single good implementation. They are all bugged and 100x slower/clunkier than using the built in menu on a CRT TV from the early 90s. 3. Yes, the web would be better if it was just static content. Even without <video> tag. The primary use of a <video> tag is clickbait (actually, almost nobody uses a <video> tag because they don't want to host video, and instead use a youtube embed, so <video> is not even used in practice). For anything else, like movies, porn, etc, it's 1000x more convenient to just download the video and watch it offline in a real video player like MPV. Web browsers still cannot even turn off that stupid "you are now in full screen" banner at the top of the screen, which fortifies my point that <video> is not good for what it is intended for: short one-off clips scattered throughout web pages. 4. The whole idea that it's hard to have a video tag is a product of licesnsing braindamage and the clusterfuck of video encoding standards. 5. The web is not great, and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Using a god damn terminal emulator (the most braindamaged obsolete shit in the world) is 1000x more pleasant than using a web browser.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

azangru 5y ago

So write an application multiple times in multiple languages, package it into different packages, and distribute them through app stores? Oh, and desktop Linux users are out of luck because their market share is so tiny, and their distros are so numerous and chaotic that no-one is going to bother spending time and money on building applications for those poor sods. Is this the idea?

choeger 5y ago
Which step in that process could not be automated? What's so fucking difficult on either writing a Cross-Platform UI or using a Cross-Platform framework? <rant> Is it not instead the case that today's hipster developers simply want to ignore that platforms exist beside their fancy McBooks? Is it not the case that today's developers prefer a bizarre interpreted untyped language simply because that's what they learned for building websites and they don't want to put up the effort to understand what a type system is? Is it not true that the same developers pull in dependencies reflexivly and never consider long-term maintenance, let alone such weird concepts like supply chain security? And finally did not some hip leaders invent the microservice architecture to cater to these idiots? Because it's nowadays simpler to have a huge, inefficient, pile of services that hides all complexity in the communication between these services than to have one well-designed, efficient system? </rant> Sorry for the rant, but sometimes I feel like the industry is actually regressing because many developers are simply lazy morons that hide behind buzzwords.
- d3ckard 5y ago
  Buzzwords like type system?
- jansommer 5y ago
  Please suggest a cross platform framework that doesn't come with accessibility issues, that also allows you to create as rich ui's like what you can do in a browser, and without various licenses that restrict what you can do with your code? Something that supports Android, iOS, Linux, Windows and MacOS.

linguae 5y ago

I don’t have much experience with web development, but lately I’ve been wondering, though, if those using browsers as application runtime environments should go all the way and eschew the DOM in favor of presenting a GUI in a WebGL canvas? Theoretically, the combination of WebGL and Webassembly may be an attractive platform for developing cross-platform applications. We already have Electron apps, but instead of using HTML+CSS+JavaScript, we use tools inspired by desktop GUI development tools that render to a WebGL canvas and compile to Webassembly?

tekromancr 5y ago
Sure, one /could/ do that. And most web based games do that but then you have to re-invent a whole bunch of stuff. Scrolling, text layout, accessibility hooks, etc.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Or have a Google team size, https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-Canvas-Based-Rendering-Update.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-...
kaba0 5y ago
That already exists, but it would also mean the end of end-user customizations. As mentioned by sibling poster, accessibility would be nonexistent, but one also could not use adblockers, copy text, etc.