Re:W3C recommends WebAssembly
by BlueTemplar on Friday December 06, 2019 @02:46PM
(#21725300)
No, the browser should not be used for all content. It's not designed for it, and we already have the OS itself for that, why do you want to add needless levels of abstraction??
Re:W3C recommends WebAssembly
by 6gvONxR4sf7o on Friday December 06, 2019 @08:26PM
(#21727811)
I agree that we should free up the constraints. But text is everywhere for a good reason. Assuming that while we add more non-text, we still keep making more text too, I hope we don't lose the ability to openly parse that new text.
What, exactly, is "content"? Are binary formats content? (Audio, Video, etc?) Are textual comments and notes on other text content, or is only the work being commented on content? Are languages that rely on unicode encodings content? Must content be static or can it change frequently, even second by second? (Stock quotes, for example). Must things be easily scrapeable to be content?
Furthermore, must we lock down the structure of content from now until the end of time as HTML or ASCII, or should future generations be allowed to define what they mean by content?
There may be merit in a separation of content from browser, but we should not artificially limit ourselves to content that only fits into our legacy notion of what a browser is. If the browser must become a general purpose OS that can host whatever content people can dream up, I'm all for it.