Re:I’m done with the web
by grey-area on Thursday March 21, 2013 @05:50PM
(#5419348)
I broadly agree, but I think perhaps your thesis is a bit premature given the latest push for mobile apps, and (perhaps more dangerous to the web), walled gardens like Facebook.
But I think the open web will win in the end, not because of any inherent technical advantage (in some ways it's behind native apps still in terms of performance, look and feel etc), but because the open web has so many advantages for developers and users that in the end it will overcome its disadvantages. Performance and UIS are improving constantly on the web (contrary to the opinion of this poster), so the gap is narrowing. At some point the performance won't matter, offline web work will become possible, the network will be fast and ubiquitous enough and the advantages of the open web will come to the fore.
As a developer of web apps and mobile apps, the contrast between deploying a few fixes a day to a website, and working hard on new app versions only to have them rejected by an anonymous gatekeeper at Apple, often for inscrutable and unjustified reasons, then waiting days or weeks for approval, could not be more marked. Things are easier on the desktop, but there are still far more hurdles to deployment, and that matters a lot, as you hint above. The only thing I really miss on the web is a great language to script web pages in, but that will come (js is not my favourite language), and you can use any language you want on the backend, and no-one need know.
As a user, the advantages of the open web (i.e. not walled gardens like Facebook) will I think have an irresistible pull - advantages like linkable, shareable content, content on any device, even unforeseen ones, not having to rebuy apps but just subscribing once and accessing content from anywhere. The fact that the web is not controlled by a single vendor as most commercial operating systems or devices are is an added bonus.
Finally, I'd argue that the radical simplicity of web technology is actually its greatest strength, as it means it can be deployed almost anywhere, even with limited resources, and give at least some value to users for decades and over any new devices which come out, as opposed to the binaries being created for current platforms which in a decade will be forgotten or dumped by their vendor in favour of the newest flavour of opendoc, .Net, whatever... I find it fascinating that the web delivers consistently better results by virtue of keeping the tech simple and backwards compatible.
But I think the open web will win in the end, not because of any inherent technical advantage (in some ways it's behind native apps still in terms of performance, look and feel etc), but because the open web has so many advantages for developers and users that in the end it will overcome its disadvantages. Performance and UIS are improving constantly on the web (contrary to the opinion of this poster), so the gap is narrowing. At some point the performance won't matter, offline web work will become possible, the network will be fast and ubiquitous enough and the advantages of the open web will come to the fore.
As a developer of web apps and mobile apps, the contrast between deploying a few fixes a day to a website, and working hard on new app versions only to have them rejected by an anonymous gatekeeper at Apple, often for inscrutable and unjustified reasons, then waiting days or weeks for approval, could not be more marked. Things are easier on the desktop, but there are still far more hurdles to deployment, and that matters a lot, as you hint above. The only thing I really miss on the web is a great language to script web pages in, but that will come (js is not my favourite language), and you can use any language you want on the backend, and no-one need know.
As a user, the advantages of the open web (i.e. not walled gardens like Facebook) will I think have an irresistible pull - advantages like linkable, shareable content, content on any device, even unforeseen ones, not having to rebuy apps but just subscribing once and accessing content from anywhere. The fact that the web is not controlled by a single vendor as most commercial operating systems or devices are is an added bonus.
Finally, I'd argue that the radical simplicity of web technology is actually its greatest strength, as it means it can be deployed almost anywhere, even with limited resources, and give at least some value to users for decades and over any new devices which come out, as opposed to the binaries being created for current platforms which in a decade will be forgotten or dumped by their vendor in favour of the newest flavour of opendoc, .Net, whatever... I find it fascinating that the web delivers consistently better results by virtue of keeping the tech simple and backwards compatible.
Worse is better after all.