Imagine we had a clean slate. We wanted to design a technology stack that would fill the space that's currently filled by browser+javascript+dom+css+html. We don't need to use those technologies, just to fill that space. What should we do differently than the world has done?
This is an excellent thought experiment, and the question deserves to be asked.
I'm dismayed that I haven't heard anyone else ask it before, although I'm not sure you share my motivations in your posing them. That is, I get the feeling that the subtext of your comment is that you'd conclude that we'd end up with something basically the same as we have now; my claim is that we wouldn't, and what we could come up with has the potential to be so much better than HTML+JS+DOM+CSS.
Like you, I think the current settlement is poor. Usually too-complicated technology-mash platforms die a horrible death (taligent, opendoc). But somehow the web made it.
It's straightforward to come up with alternate designs that don't have a formatting emphasis, and which resemble roguelike interfaces. It's visually less appealing than the web, but offers faster, simpler development and has less tooling overhead for clients.
Coming up with something visual is a tough problem space and I don't have strong mental pictures of alternatives. But it's still a thought experiment that keeps me interested. You're the first person I've run into to complement it as a thought experiment. If you'd like to swap ideas send me an email (from profile). Maybe I'll write up some ideas and you can send feedback.
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Imagine we had a clean slate. We wanted to design a technology stack that would fill the space that's currently filled by browser+javascript+dom+css+html. We don't need to use those technologies, just to fill that space. What should we do differently than the world has done?
This is an excellent thought experiment, and the question deserves to be asked.
I'm dismayed that I haven't heard anyone else ask it before, although I'm not sure you share my motivations in your posing them. That is, I get the feeling that the subtext of your comment is that you'd conclude that we'd end up with something basically the same as we have now; my claim is that we wouldn't, and what we could come up with has the potential to be so much better than HTML+JS+DOM+CSS.
Like you, I think the current settlement is poor. Usually too-complicated technology-mash platforms die a horrible death (taligent, opendoc). But somehow the web made it.
It's straightforward to come up with alternate designs that don't have a formatting emphasis, and which resemble roguelike interfaces. It's visually less appealing than the web, but offers faster, simpler development and has less tooling overhead for clients.
Coming up with something visual is a tough problem space and I don't have strong mental pictures of alternatives. But it's still a thought experiment that keeps me interested. You're the first person I've run into to complement it as a thought experiment. If you'd like to swap ideas send me an email (from profile). Maybe I'll write up some ideas and you can send feedback.