| >Java or single operating system applications were the alternative. Not really - you could write cross-platform GUI applications from a single code base in 1996 if you wanted to without using Java. It was unpleasant, but it was absolutely possible. >Where would we be today if you couldn't swap between Mac and Windows laptops -- or worse, had to have both -- because you depended on applications that had no common operating system? Those days are still here, depending on the application. >The reason we can use linux as a desktop is because of web applications. I wouldn't say that's the reason. Certainly a reason, but not the definitive one. There are still cross-platform applications from a single code base. This is actually easier due to better cross-platform toolkits that were developed and would have continued development even if webapps hadn't become a thing. >Even today, it's a giant pain to write cross-platform apps in anything but C or C++ Python and Java are relatively painless in this regard. >It turns out that nobody is willing to put in the effort when we already have web applications. Web applications certainly do have the advantage from a monetization, time to market, and network effect standpoint, no doubt. |
Right - as seen by Netscape. We can also speak about codeweavers and others we have, but in '96, those were out of reach by all but the largest applications. (Pagemaker, word, etc.) However, the honest truth is that web apps were an order of magnitude cheaper for anything that wasn't desktop-heavy in 1996.
Again, worse is better.
> Python and Java are relatively painless in this regard.
Does your user have the right version of python? Are you bundling python with your application? I haven't worked with pyinstaller - it might be better today, but
And as far as writing python gui applications... Tkinter and WxPython are ugly. PyQt and PyGtk, last I looked at it, was painful and effectively meant knowing C++, and Qt licensing from non-oss is rough. Jython is punting the java problem above. In what world is this not painless?
I wrote a JavaFX app just for myself a bit back because I didn't want the overhead of Electron for my simple app. The experience in bundling it for each was not straightforward, especially with post Java 9. Jpackage and jlink and graalvm exist today, but the work around them are not as straightforward as getting a webapp up and running.
The experience does not, by its very nature, have to be worse than web applications, but we've had two orders of magnitude in engineering effort to make the web application developer experience better. In 1996, even with as small as the internet was at that point, enterprise application deployment was so painful that web applications were a giant competitive advantage.