Re:Asm.js: a strict subset of js for compilers – working draft
by samth on Friday February 15, 2013 @07:02PM
(#5229579)
> JavaScript and the DOM have not been incredibly successful at turning the browser into a first-class application development platform.
Seriously? From where I stand, it looks like browser-based applications are destroying the desktop-based software market with alacrity, and are coming for mobile. And also that major vendors like Google and Microsoft are shipping desktop platforms where JS (and sometimes the DOM) is a primary way of developing applications.
The browser as application development platform is one of the two most important developments in software development in the last 20 years. That looks "incredible successful" to me.
Re:Asm.js: a strict subset of js for compilers – working draft
by cpeterso on Friday February 15, 2013 @08:00PM
(#5229812)
> The browser as application development platform is one of the two most important developments in software development in the last 20 years.
OT, but I'm curious what your other important development is! <:)
Re:Asm.js: a strict subset of js for compilers – working draft
by samth on Friday February 15, 2013 @09:48PM
(#5230123)
Mobile.
All of those things were also incredibly successful at what they did.
JavaScript and the DOM have not been incredibly successful at turning the browser into a first-class application development platform.
This is for many reasons; network performance, CPU performance, the difficulty of composing rich APIs, the lack of cleanly defined re-usable widgets and libraries (eg, the non-suitability of the DOM), the difficulty of interacting with the host.
Given that, why not start fresh for targeting applications? Leave JS in place, let your system target it as an output format for backwards compatibility, and -- finally -- clean up the massive cruft of the web as an app platform. Discarding decades of experience in producing effective consumer applications on the desktop (and now mobile) is foolish.