Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript?

Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by scrod on Monday April 18, 2011 @02:12AM (#2458173)

Probably because the web isn't actually an application platform at all, but is still fundamentally a medium for displaying static hyperlinked content on top of which has been piled an increasingly absurd series of hacks (forms + CGI, Cookies, Plugins, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest, etc.), each in order to solve a different, unrelated problem. And so we then have to write "web frameworks" to smear the incongruities of these various functionality-hooks into an end-to-end system just to enable tolerable development methodologies.

If you want to make developing applications easier, then it will always be better to start with a platform that has actually been architected toward those ends from the beginning.

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Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by cageface on Monday April 18, 2011 @03:19AM (#2458292)

I can't find the words to express how much happier I am with to be working again on a platform (iOS) that was designed from the ground up to build rich UIs. HTML apps are such a grotesque heap of hacks in comparison.

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Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by nekoZonbi on Monday April 18, 2011 @04:14AM (#2458378)

Excellent point. Thats the same experience I had when moved to the flash platform, some years back.

Now that I am coming back to html-javascript, i can help but feel frustrated by the mess that is html app development.

My dream for the web platform, would be that the committees would create some kind of underlying bytecode and basic graphic primitives. On top of which different programming languages and graphic Apis could be implemented. Then, to develop hyperlinked documents, you can use an hyperlinked document oriented API. To develop complex UI, you can use a complex UI oriented API.

Maybe the web is now near that goal. Javascript could be the bytecode. And the DOM (wich I hate with passion) could be replaced by a GUI toolkit build on top of the html canvas. I would love to work on that, if I had time available.

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Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by bad_user on Monday April 18, 2011 @04:06AM (#2458370)

It is funny how people complain about web apps, but then the more complex a desktop app it is, the more the UI starts resembling a web application running on top of an embedded web browser.

Also, quick questions -- what other platform has a nearly 100% market penetration rate and how does that compare to the iPhone's Cocoa?

AND, with the iPhone's Cocoa you're not even allowed to distribute or update your app, without going through iTunes, both of which have been problems far worse than whatever any regular web stack has caused me.

Bitching about how web development sucks is NOT seeing the forest from the trees, because if you think about what web development enables, there is absolutely NO other alternative, and each of those little annoyances have a good reason for being there. And even though we could do with less cross-browser compatibility issues, I think I don't have to mention the shithole you're entering when doing cross-platform desktop UIs.

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Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by SupremumLimit on Monday April 18, 2011 @05:42AM (#2458508)

I'd say each of the annoyances has a historical reason for being there, but not a real reason as in "this is just the best way to do it". You make it sound like it's a cohesive platform that was designed to fulfill particular goals from the start, but it definitely wasn't.

I agree with you about the value of the web platform. It has a lot of advantages, especially from a business perspective, but it doesn't mean that it's a good platform.

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Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by cageface on Monday April 18, 2011 @06:02AM (#2458531)

This isn't the case for the desktop apps I care about at all. Ableton Live, Photoshop, XCode, MetaSynth, dozens of plugins for same, any number of video editors, look and feel nothing at all like a web app. Web-based versions of these will not be competitive any time in the forseeable future.

Your concerns about Apple's policies are legitimate but orthogonal.

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Re:Ask HN: Why not fix JavaScript? by scrod on Monday April 18, 2011 @12:41PM (#2459664)

>Also, quick questions -- what other platform has a nearly 100% market penetration rate and how does that compare to the iPhone's Cocoa?

I don't know, why don't you ask an iOS developer?

>AND, with the iPhone's Cocoa you're not even allowed to distribute or update your app, without going through iTunes, both of which have been problems far worse than whatever any regular web stack has caused me.

My straw man development team claims to have no problems with deployment.

iOS? Cross-platform compatibility? It looks like you posted this in response to someone else's comment.

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