[raxxorraxor]

> "[...] we are crushing ourselves with the accumulated complexity we’ve piled on top of bad foundations [...]"

The same could be said about plain HTML/CSS though. I think the author is correct overall and I don't really see improvement on the horizon. WebAssembly, while great that it exists, can morph browsers into some poor mans virtual operating system and this can lead to a less open web.

We already see more closed Platforms like Discord. I use it too, the product is completely fine, but it sucks in information that isn't availble on the open net if you don't go through the platform. Some communities exclusively use it and they get little discoverability through web searches. Sure, this isn't really related to Javascript/Webassembly, just a development I fear will increase and which could be accelerated with different approaches to languages.

A front-end scripting language available in every browser is very, very useful. I think few new languages could replace it here, I don't know of any at least. And I think a lot of flexibility is lost if you begin to transpile anthing into Javascript. Granted, for large projects it is pretty much a requirement to do so at some point.

[diego_sandoval]

> The same could be said about plain HTML/CSS though.

Genuine question: How much of the complexity of working with HTML/CSS is unnecessary and how much is inherent to the problem they solve? Is it as bad as with Javascript?

I would say that we, for the most part, have a very clear idea of how we could (theoretically) replace Javascript with something much better.

I don't know of alternative layout languages, so I don't know how good CSS is in comparison. And what could we replace HTML with? My general appreciation, from my ignorance, is that they are not that bad.

[jhp123]

TeX solves the core problem of responsive layout using just a small handful of primitives. No one seems to have noticed that FlexBox is mostly a copy of the TeX boxes and glue model.

[raxxorraxor]

I believe the complexity often stems from historical development as well. There are often multiple ways to achieve the same thing or workarounds for specific browser. Either you have HTML tags to format something or you can do it with CSS. CSS is difficult, because there are obtuse rules. The order of CSS-rules is relevant as well as the specificity (which is hell in my opinion).

You can write an extremely clean and awesome HTML/CSS document. But you very rarely find that kind on the web.

I think we neglected being more careful here because browsers became more and more forgiving. So they often render as intended, but not really like it is stated in the often invalid document. That made browser insanely complex as well. No new browser will ever be successful if it would be parsing strictly. More than half of all websites would probably stop working correctly.

I believe you could replace both HTML/CSS with something much more clear and as capable. But on the other hand we should be glad that we have standards like this and perhaps we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Perhaps JS doesn't qualify as good, but on the other hand I think its success speaks for itself. It even grew beyond the browser and some electron apps are extremely well received (apart perhaps by your system memory). Despite that, it is a scripting language and it should mostly be used as that. Since every browser comes with a parser, it is a quite mighty tool to have.

Python is a similar contender. It is the ultimate choice for certain domains and I don't see that changing any time soon, even if python isn't perfect itself.

[Latty]

Seriously, every time people complain about CSS and HTML I think about how much work it is to support all the localisation and layout stuff they do. Managing massively different sized screens as elegantly as them is hard and yeah, it's still not that elegant or easy, but I haven't used anything better that didn't sacrifice something for it.

[SenHeng]

Every time I have to build a UI in canvas, I yearn for all the conveniences CSS and the DOM provide. Do people even realise how much trouble it is to make text wrap within a given space?

[Solvency]

It is, but yet thousands of videogames have been doing this for decades...

[arp242]

The UI of many games break if you scale the text though, if it offers such a feature (e.g. text won't fit in boxes). This is also the case on the web at times, but much less often.

[SenHeng]

And most games will use an engine like Unity or Unreal so they don't have to re-invent the wheel. HTML and CSS may not be perfect, but they've been battle tested for a good 30 years and have had improvements added. No need to re-invent that wheel.

[geektips]

Absolutely, I totally agree. Layout development has gotten a lot better with Flexbox, Grid, and the new Container Queries.

[threeseed]

> How much of the complexity of working with HTML/CSS is unnecessary

Talk to Google.

They are the ones aggressively increasing the API surface of the Web (driven largely by commercial reasons e.g. ChromeOS) often without much thought to the security, privacy and performance implications.

[yxre]

Nobody will ever agree on an alternative. And, none of the attempted alternatives have ever taken off because the velocity of javascript's incrementalism is far greater than the velocity of any new shiny thing.

JS has the weight of the largest corporations in the world behind it that don't want to lose their investments

[smole]

Worse than trying to replace it entirely is that you just end up with two implementations that need to be maintained.

[chii]

> [closed platforms] will increase and which could be accelerated with different approaches to languages.

the business incentive is towards such closed platforms - data and platform ownership has value after all. It makes zero sense for a business to keep a platform open and potentially help a competitor.

[raxxorraxor]

I disagree, it would be in their interest to somehow gap that border in the long run, although I wouldn't know an easy way to achieve this. Its users often tend to not understand the repercussions in my opinion and that is true even for software developers.

Sure, an exchange on Discord is easy and personal, you get ample support from your supporters and that can really propel projects to the next level. But as I said, all the knowledge from these exchanges is lost for the net. The user that comes 2 years later won't see these exchanges and not even you product in some cases. I would always suggest to also use some kind of forum or knowledge base.

Discord has APIs to make such content discoverable as well in theory. I use the platform too, it shouldn't be seen as an indictment for the Discord developers at all. On the contrary they offer an extremely useful service and in most cases completely for free and it shows that they care for the platform. But just as things are, we have it as something separate to the usual web and I believe that some communities suffer if they do not provide alternative venues.

[stavros]

Discoverability for communities is a really good point. I wonder if any chat software exists that allows easy/good indexing by search engines.