The browser platform is not perfect, its not close to perfect, its evolving to do something that it was not originally designed to but it still the best shot at cross platform software. You can pick the JVM for all elegance it had, it never achieved what simple servers with bad markup languages did. There is a reason why you are typing on a browser right now and not using a java applet. The reason is that even with all the drawbacks of web technology, it works, it is easy to implement, it is easy to learn. Its not about über programmers in ivory towers, its about empowering everyone with a technology that is easy to grasp. It takes a very good professional to craft a good web app but it still easy enough that people from non-technical backgrounds can share knowledge. Its a platform for sharing stuff.
Yes they added typed arrays just now. The engines evolved a lot during the last two years. Lots of things are being ironed out. Instead of just seeing deficiencies, see how progress is being made with something that is open, free and common.
No, but they are tied to the web, for which browsers and JavaScript are an incumbent technology. You are right, in the same way that Windows has nothing in particular to do with games, outside of a fortunate adoption of DirectX. It's just that it's the way the world turned out. Admittedly, there are downsides.
We are in agreement.
People have every right to be annoyed because the people who were entrusted with the concept of the web implemented it very badly.
Again, no disagreement. But in the meantime, implementing things is still my preferred activity to complaining.
Windows. The market has spoken. Let's just all be smart enough to not be defeated by the marketing to stupids.
What is asm.js (and WebGL, for that matter) if not that?
Asm.js is an enormous hack where we limit the computational expressiveness of performance critical code by the semantics and standard library of a language notoriously shit at it.
Unreal Engine 4 is a counterexample.
> Asm.js is an enormous hack where we limit the computational expressiveness of performance critical code by the semantics and standard library of a language notoriously shit at it.
How is it limited?
Asm.js is limited by having no 32-bit float type, no 64-bit int type, no SIMD, no dynamic memory allocation and the fact that they had to extend the language from day 1 just to be able to multiply a 32-bit integer by another quickly.
You may want to actually inform yourself.
WebGL 2.0 has many of the extensions and is in Editor's Draft status: http://www.khronos.org/registry/webgl/specs/latest/2.0/ It has a prototype implementation already: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/WebGL2
> Asm.js is limited by having no 32-bit float type, no 64-bit int type, no SIMD, no dynamic memory allocation and the fact that they had to extend the language from day 1 just to be able to multiply a 32-bit integer by another quickly.
asm.js has 32-bit floats already: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/gap-between-asm-js-and-nat...
64-bit ints and SIMD are being discussed on TC39 right now. Dynamic memory allocation (assuming you mean growing the typed array) isn't that important and we have ways to do it if we need to.
> You may want to actually inform yourself.
This kind of comment is emblematic of HN's evaporative cooling, especially when it's inaccurate. :(
There was no conspiracy against it. It had its chance. It used to have high install rates. It was placed about as perfectly for success as you could hope to be. If it hadn't failed so miserably at what it set out to do and be (and instead succeeded in a different area), we would be using it now, and living in the utopia you wish for.
As an aside, a lot of your complaints against web technologies make it sound as if there is a cohesive group of people designing something and doing it wrong. Actually it's a much more chaotic process involving a diverse group of people and companies and competing interests. It doesn't guarantee that we end up with the best designs, but such a process has benefits too, and since it's happening in the open, you could actually take part too (assuming you aren't already).
Unfortunately, what is needed is LESS people participating.