[pbsdp]

That didn't stop them from trying to launch a mobile phone platform in competition with Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

If they're willing to accept that risk, by comparison, how large of a risk is trying to push through a better standardized browser execution environment, with Google's cooperation?

God forbid they succeed, and we finally have a competitive application platform.

[gnaritas]

I see; you're the type who thinks he's smarter than everyone in the industry and just has all the answers and ignores anything that doesn't fit your idea. Never mind that no one has been able to replace JS, just listen to you and all those problems will evaporate. Goodbye.

[pbsdp]

> I see; you're the type who thinks he's smarter than everyone in the industry ...

You mean, like Google, who continually pushes to do exactly what I've described here, only to be stymied by:

- Apple, who has no reason to support the web as competitive to their native platform.

- Microsoft, same.

- Mozilla, who refuses to consider that there might be a world beyond HTML/CSS/JS because they believe those specific technologies are intrinsic qualities of the web, and thus central to their mission of supporting the web.

Looks like the only people I disagree with are the Mozilla camp. Microsoft and Apple have different priorities, and Google is continually frustrated by exactly what I've described here.

[marshray]

Every major browser vendor has pushed for some stuff and resisted other stuff. Only extremely rarely does anything new make it to 'cross browser compatible' status.

There are far far worse systems for evolving widely used platforms.

[pbsdp]

> There are far far worse systems for evolving widely used platforms.

That's fine, but perhaps it would behoove Mozilla to not participate in dooming the web as a competitive application platform simply due to a misguided belief that the web is defined by HTML/CSS/JS?

[thelukester]

Agreed, CSS/DOM/JS need to be replaced, before the web can truly be an application platform.

[gnaritas]

> only to be stymied by:

Reality. Imagine that.

[pbsdp]

Yes, the reality is that proprietary application platforms are taking over the application market, and that the web is slowly losing one of its major market advantages: a huge brain trust of web-only engineers and web-only engineering organizations.

Imagine that.

[gnaritas]

LMAO. No such thing is happening, the web isn't losing anything nor does the rise of apps on mobile threaten the web.

> the reality is that proprietary application platforms are taking over the application market

That doesn't even make sense as proprietary application platforms have always owned the application market.

[pbsdp]

> No such thing is happening ...

You're asserting that there hasn't been a significant management and hiring shift in engineering departments over the past 5 years, moving away from what became a web monoculture in the post-90s environment, from roughly 2000-2005?

> That doesn't even make sense as proprietary application platforms have always owned the application market.

So you admit the web is ill-suited to serve as an application platform, and is failing to acquire traction in that space despite considerable but ill-focused efforts to the contrary?

[marshray]

You're joking, right?

[gnaritas]

He's not; he thinks he's being insightful.

[pbsdp]

No. As someone intimately involved in startup hiring, there's been a massive shift in the make-up of technology organizations.

Mobile has gone from a side-show farmed out to consulting organizations to a mainstream in-house development effort, and the organizations themselves have shifted management and priorities accordingly.

It used to be that almost everyone had a web engineering organization in-house, even non-technology companies. That is changing. Companies like the NYTimes have gone from being grossly unable to manage mobile efforts and farming their work out to subpar contractors, to straight-up building a top-quality team of mobile developers.

Here's the tricky thing about that, too. Those developers, by the nature of where they work in the technology stack, are already quite versatile, and can choose technology solutions outside of the web stack. The problem that most organizations faced originally was that their web departments were a mono-culture and couldn't adapt.

So now you have companies that can and are building technology outside the web, and that means that the network effects that existed before are being torn down. The web tried to leap onto the application bandwagon, and the web failed. Now other technologies are taking over that space.