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by concerned_user 3046 days ago
But isn't web browser currently is a de-facto cross platform UI toolkit for displaying web pages it is just that we managed to make web pages look and behave more like apps.

So it is definitely possible to make a framework/toolkit although if you look at development history of browsers how many years it took them to get where they are and Opera throwing in the towel and switching to Blink.

Only question is, if they do such a toolkit what is there remaining for OS vendors to do? Kernels? Users will just choose faster one.
3 comments
oblio 3046 days ago
The browser is a cross platform UI, yes.

But is it on-par with native offerings? Where are the standardized components? How many years did it take to get a simple grid layout present in Tk back in 1991? Where's the fool-proof GUI editor? How long did it take for it to have a date input?

The web had to fight its way to where it is now. And that's why it has so many scars (besides the self-inflicted DOM and Javascript before strict mode and ECMAScript 5).

Regarding the OS vendors, well, yes, kernels, tools, basic apps. Also not all applications are graphical.

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concerned_user 3046 days ago
Native offerings kinda suck too I don't know any standardized one. Swing, QT, GTK all look different depending on the OS.

Before web stack there was Flash it had hardware access but it was insecure, now web tech going the same way with web assembly and webgl.

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s73v3r_ 3046 days ago
"Swing, QT, GTK all look different depending on the OS."

They're supposed to. They're fitting in with the OS's native look and feel. And that's a GOOD THING.

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lmm 3046 days ago
It took decades of development and an immense amount of resources - the current web engine we all use is the work of dozens of developers from KDE, Apple and Google. If we could've got those all to collaborate on a native UI toolkit you could probably have got something equally good, but such a joint Apple-Google project would probably have been politically impossible at both companies.
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jopsen 3046 days ago
Exactly, and building a UI framework as powerful as the web tech is very hard.
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