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by JohnFen 996 days ago
> And yet you are posting this on HN, which one could argue is a Web application.

I think if HN counts as a web app, then "web app" has no meaningful definition.

> Web apps don't have to suck.

Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that the ones I've used (and have to use at work) do suck.
1 comments
jowea 996 days ago
It is on the web, and it is interactive, i.e. not just a static blog. The average social media site is clearly a web app, right? What is HN missing? Not looking like it's from the early web 2.0 era?
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JohnFen 996 days ago
> The average social media site is clearly a web app, right?

I never considered them as such, no. Those (including HN) are just ordinary websites with some amount of interactivity.

To me, a "web app" is a thing that replicates a normal application in web form. Things like GMail, Office, etc. In other words, they aren't things that uniquely leverage the web, they're things that are using the web as a shortcut to platform independence.

But perhaps the definition has changed, and I need to be much more explicit and specific instead of using the term "web app". I could buy that, but it also means that I don't actually know what a "web app" is anymore.

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shawnz 995 days ago
This seems like an artificially restrictive definition that necessarily excludes anything that you might actually enjoy using. Doesn't it just naturally make sense that the software you enjoy using most is the software that's designed idiomatically around the platform it runs on? If "web app" is defined to mean "software not meant for the web, but shoehorned onto it" then of course all web apps will suck.
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ianburrell 996 days ago
HN mostly doesn't have JavaScript. I think vote buttons and the collapsing comments are the only things that are JavaScript. Everything else is HTML and links.

I don't think it makes a functional difference, except for "more" links instead of universal scrolling. Just like can't tell between static blog and dynamic blog, can't tell between static HTML and dynamic JavaScript. I would say "web app" is where download JavaScript, and the JavaScript builds the page.

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