Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by blacktriangle on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:43AM (#27130908)

It's not about the web being more or less open, it's about the browser playing the role of a distributed application run time. I'd argue that Google Docs is basically not a part of the web, it just incidentally happens to run in the same browser as the web does for logistic reasons.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by sime2009 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:21AM (#27131362)

Web apps have been around for well over a decade but some people are still struggling with the idea that a web browser can display hypertext documents and also run applications, plus a whole universe of hybrid things which lie in between these two extremes.

Not everything a browser displays has to fit in the "page" paradigm.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by deckard1 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @05:00PM (#27135094)

Web 2.0 enabling web apps was always a myth. There have been web "apps" since the 1990s with CGI. XMLHttpRequest merely allowed for the moving of some of that logic to the client side.

In that respect, we've been working around the "page" paradigm since the web was practically born. It was a flawed analogy because, even back then, screen sizes and display tech varied among users. Designers still approach web design as if they are designing for print. I've always maintained that if the web were based on a vector technology (think PostScript, but obviously not PostScript) we would be in a much better place both design-wise and accessibility-wise. Content would flow in a much more controlled manner with much less room for browser interpretation and second-guessing. But people were still clinging on to the write once run anywhere (ahem, Java) naivety of the day. And likewise they really thought that you could divorce presentation from semantics and... have something that just worked? I guess? Just sprinkle on some afterthought CSS tech crap and no one will ever notice that the entire thing is flawed at a fundamental level.

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