5 ms·

If I could just use my favourite language and not feel like a second class citizen, then I am not sure there would be anything else to complain about as a devel

by M8 11y ago

If I could just use my favourite language and not feel like a second class citizen, then I am not sure there would be anything else to complain about as a developer, really. A mark-up bytecode so that we could forget about the nightmare of HTML and CSS as well?

thomasfoster96 11y ago
Just start loading a single script tag and ignore HTML and CSS completely. Will severely impact usability and SEO though.
- wereHamster 11y ago
  The Google Bot executes JavaScript and indexes the result, I don't see why it couldn't run wasm.
  - wodenokoto 11y ago
    While it may very well run the WASM it'll need to interpret the output. How do you rank a running game of candycrush vs. the candycrush website in google results?
  - thomasfoster96 11y ago
    Well, unless you produce HTML dynamically Googlbot supporting JavaScript doesn't really matter.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    The Google Bot. Again, this makes it harder for competitors to ever enter the market.
- sixdimensional 11y ago
  Actually, I think this might be a great opportunity to separate applications/datum that don't need to be indexed by search engines from those that do. Of course, we have to be careful that we don't get walled off content in applications which can and already does easily happen, but I don't think that is truly in the spirit of the sharing web that we have all come to know and love. There are at least two distinct types of content - structured/unstructured content that should be exposed and can be indexed via some known mechanism by external visitors, and application content that perhaps need not be indexed. This might be a time to evolve/establish what those mechanisms are for the betterment of both application development and content development/sharing.
  - MaxNanasy 11y ago
    robots.txt
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
JoshTriplett 11y ago
Fast-forward a few years, and imagine if a browser engine were nothing more than a WebAssembly engine and a "default" HTML/CSS implementation. You could replace that engine with anything you like written in WebAssembly, doing all its own rendering and input using the lower-level APIs provided by WebAssembly. So, every browser gets the latest rendering and elements, or at the very least polyfills via WebAssembly rather than JavaScript.
- jerf 11y ago
  I think we're pretty clearly headed in this direction. It's the only way out of the nightmare of our current webdev world.
- 0x0 11y ago
  Sounds terrible for SEO, screen readers and adblockers.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    You can already build awful, non-semantic HTML today, with a giant pile of <div> tags, CSS, and JavaScript. The web hasn't fallen apart. Similarly, just because it'll be possible to implement a full web engine efficiently in WebAssembly doesn't mean sites will suddenly stop paying any attention to standards or accessibility. As for adblockers, I can think of several ways to block ads in such a world, including hooking the sockets API to block or sandbox access to ad-serving hosts, or providing hot-patches that stub out common ad-serving libraries. It'll get harder, but not impossible.
    - mkozlows 11y ago
      "The web hasn't fallen apart" for sighted users. Those non-semantic, unusable-to-screen-reader sites are in fact an accessibility disaster for blind users, who can find it nearly impossible to use some sites. (And a disaster for the companies that build them and get sued later.)
      - 11y ago
BrendanEich 11y ago
And remember the nightmare of lazy Java class loading, or huge SWF apps with distract-the-user loading splash screens? The Web evolved to do incremental/progressive rendering, it's one of the best aspects. Undumping a frozen Dart heap was a goal to speed up gmail, but over long thin pipes (my "LTE", most of the time), incremental/progressive wins. Sure, games come in big packages and good ones are worth the download time. For most other apps, small is beautiful. iOS app update still sucks, not just because semi-automatic.
angersock 11y ago
Oh, goody, so now we all get to worry about a more fragmented development ecosystem.

by M8 11y ago

thomasfoster96 11y ago

Just start loading a single script tag and ignore HTML and CSS completely. Will severely impact usability and SEO though.

wereHamster 11y ago
The Google Bot executes JavaScript and indexes the result, I don't see why it couldn't run wasm.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  While it may very well run the WASM it'll need to interpret the output. How do you rank a running game of candycrush vs. the candycrush website in google results?
- thomasfoster96 11y ago
  Well, unless you produce HTML dynamically Googlbot supporting JavaScript doesn't really matter.
- kuschku 11y ago
  The Google Bot. Again, this makes it harder for competitors to ever enter the market.
sixdimensional 11y ago
Actually, I think this might be a great opportunity to separate applications/datum that don't need to be indexed by search engines from those that do. Of course, we have to be careful that we don't get walled off content in applications which can and already does easily happen, but I don't think that is truly in the spirit of the sharing web that we have all come to know and love. There are at least two distinct types of content - structured/unstructured content that should be exposed and can be indexed via some known mechanism by external visitors, and application content that perhaps need not be indexed. This might be a time to evolve/establish what those mechanisms are for the betterment of both application development and content development/sharing.
- MaxNanasy 11y ago
  robots.txt
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

JoshTriplett 11y ago

Fast-forward a few years, and imagine if a browser engine were nothing more than a WebAssembly engine and a "default" HTML/CSS implementation. You could replace that engine with anything you like written in WebAssembly, doing all its own rendering and input using the lower-level APIs provided by WebAssembly. So, every browser gets the latest rendering and elements, or at the very least polyfills via WebAssembly rather than JavaScript.

jerf 11y ago
I think we're pretty clearly headed in this direction. It's the only way out of the nightmare of our current webdev world.
0x0 11y ago
Sounds terrible for SEO, screen readers and adblockers.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  You can already build awful, non-semantic HTML today, with a giant pile of <div> tags, CSS, and JavaScript. The web hasn't fallen apart. Similarly, just because it'll be possible to implement a full web engine efficiently in WebAssembly doesn't mean sites will suddenly stop paying any attention to standards or accessibility. As for adblockers, I can think of several ways to block ads in such a world, including hooking the sockets API to block or sandbox access to ad-serving hosts, or providing hot-patches that stub out common ad-serving libraries. It'll get harder, but not impossible.
  - mkozlows 11y ago
    "The web hasn't fallen apart" for sighted users. Those non-semantic, unusable-to-screen-reader sites are in fact an accessibility disaster for blind users, who can find it nearly impossible to use some sites. (And a disaster for the companies that build them and get sued later.)
    - 11y ago

BrendanEich 11y ago

And remember the nightmare of lazy Java class loading, or huge SWF apps with distract-the-user loading splash screens? The Web evolved to do incremental/progressive rendering, it's one of the best aspects. Undumping a frozen Dart heap was a goal to speed up gmail, but over long thin pipes (my "LTE", most of the time), incremental/progressive wins. Sure, games come in big packages and good ones are worth the download time. For most other apps, small is beautiful. iOS app update still sucks, not just because semi-automatic.

angersock 11y ago

Oh, goody, so now we all get to worry about a more fragmented development ecosystem.