[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?

[gnaritas]

You can't even stay on topic without constantly moving the goalpost.

> 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?

I asserted no such thing, learn to read.

> 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?

I admit? What kind of stupid opening is that? Show me where I said anything about the web serving as a great application platform over native apps.

You know what, never mind; you're an argumentative ill tempered child who doesn't know how to have a discussion properly. Have a nice day.

[marshray]

You're joking, right?

[gnaritas]

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

[pbsdp]

What's your excuse?

Mobile is growing hand-over-fist and web apps developers are still arguing about whether they're fast enough to compete, and whether we could possibly maybe actually move past HTML/CSS/JS sometime in this decade.

It's ridiculous, and you claim it's "reality". Fine, your reality sucks, and there's no inherent reason why it has to win ... and it might not.

[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.

[marshray]

I've been developing for proprietary and web platforms for a long time too. I really don't see that the rise of mobile is in any way coming at the expense of the web.

Who are these development organizations who truly enjoy maintaining five different apps for all the major desktop and mobile platforms and who are aren't going to make the jump as soon as HTML5 delivers everything they need?

Obviously there will always be applications (antivirus, encryption, etc.) for which a browser is poorly suited. But this percentage will never be bigger than it is today.