Flow browser passes the Acid tests

Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by Spivak on Saturday June 13, 2020 @10:11AM (#23509455)

Will the current web stack be the preferred language of applications that run in a browser forever? Maybe not. Having the browser just be a WASM target with (potentially) more than one rendering and layout engine doesn’t seem that far fetched.

However, I think the need to support the current web stack will continue for the foreseeable future since it would be a terrible waste to simply abandon a platform that so many applications are written for.

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by emerongi on Saturday June 13, 2020 @10:22AM (#23509532)

I agree. The current stack is here to stay and we will need to support it. However, as a web developer, I spend insane amounts of time dealing with simple issues that stem from the fact that we are building complex applications on top of it. Modal window has a JS select element in it? Now the whole select list has to have an absolute position to make sure it flows out of the modal. Oh wait... now the thing won't reposition itself when the user starts scrolling.

So much tech today is being built just to put a band-aid over this stuff, instead of addressing the core issue (the browser is no longer used to just deliver static documents). I can't be the only one that wishes for a new language/browser. WebAssembly might be a saviour, although I'm unsure how issues like accessibility will be addressed.

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by hombre_fatal on Saturday June 13, 2020 @10:33AM (#23509629)

Just sounds like grass-is-greener hopefulness to me.

If it was just a matter of a fresh start with a new language/stack, then Android/iOS/macOS dev would be compelling experiences. But they're not. And they're changing just as much, bandaging over themselves so much that you end up credentializing in a whole lineage of idiosyncrasies worse than just putting a <select> in a modal, except unlike the web you're just building something that works on an iPhone.

Clientdev is hard.

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by corty on Saturday June 13, 2020 @08:54PM (#23514202)

Try Delphi/Lazarus, Qt or maybe even VisualBasic.

Client Dev has regressed since those days, now it's in a state where devs can't even imagine anything better, but we clearly had that...

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by c-smile on Saturday June 13, 2020 @10:38AM (#23509671)

> However, as a web developer, ... modal window has a JS select element in it?

Try Sciter then, it was designed precisely for running desktop UI using HTML/CSS as UI declaration languages.

I was native UI developer initially, then Web Frontend Architect who returned back to desktop development taking HTML/CSS with me to Sciter.

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by pmoriarty on Saturday June 13, 2020 @02:13PM (#23511377)

"So much tech today is being built just to put a band-aid over this stuff, instead of addressing the core issue (the browser is no longer used to just deliver static documents)"

Am I the only one who thinks the sooner the web goes back to just delivering static documents, the better?

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by cageface on Saturday June 13, 2020 @11:08PM (#23514776)

This is never going to happen so what’s the point arguing that it should?

As a dev if have to choose between a flawed but still very capable open platform and proprietary walled gardens where corporations wield absolute and arbitrary control I’ll take the open option and so should you.

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by Scarblac on Saturday June 13, 2020 @05:55PM (#23513116)

For the Web that would probably be good, yes. But many of us are application programmers using the browser as a UI platform, and that doesn't have that much to do with the Web proper.

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Re:Flow browser passes the Acid tests by corty on Saturday June 13, 2020 @08:56PM (#23514217)

The Web platform needs to be split again into a document and a clearly separate application platform. With the proper architecture for each of them. Right now it is a compromise between right and left shore, dropping you into the water...

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