Writing your application in Javascript, using HTML and CSS as just the drawing layer (much like how iOS uses OpenGL behind all of its views), can make web development nearly as enjoyable as native platform development.
However, it also defeats the point of using HTML in the first place. When you abstract everything away to make the development environment sane, you abstract away the features that make HTML useful, like the ability for the markup to be interface agnostic.
I often feel the browser should become what Java was intended to be and let HTML and CSS be one application of that system. It is the direction we seem to be heading. Giving the applications a more direct path to the hardware is the natural evolution going forward. Why are we fighting the HTML/CSS layer? It is surprisingly accommodating, but adds a lot of needless overhead.
I think any cross-platform open standard is going to be at a serious disadvantage compared to a good native environment. There are just too many conflicting interests and cooks in the kitchen. This didn't matter much when the net consisted mostly of static content but as people come to expect richer and more immersive experiences the impedance mismatch is more evident.
I'm not so sure abut this, if you go back ten years most people had exposure to one platform and their web experience was limited to filling a few forms.
Now the experience is much broader, many users will have a smart phone, maybe a Mac at home and PC at work, then throw in the use of web applications like Google Docs and the whole interface landscape has become much more diverse.
Leaning towards the web as a user interface guide makes as much sense for most developers as anything else.
Comments
Writing your application in Javascript, using HTML and CSS as just the drawing layer (much like how iOS uses OpenGL behind all of its views), can make web development nearly as enjoyable as native platform development.
However, it also defeats the point of using HTML in the first place. When you abstract everything away to make the development environment sane, you abstract away the features that make HTML useful, like the ability for the markup to be interface agnostic.
I often feel the browser should become what Java was intended to be and let HTML and CSS be one application of that system. It is the direction we seem to be heading. Giving the applications a more direct path to the hardware is the natural evolution going forward. Why are we fighting the HTML/CSS layer? It is surprisingly accommodating, but adds a lot of needless overhead.
I think any cross-platform open standard is going to be at a serious disadvantage compared to a good native environment. There are just too many conflicting interests and cooks in the kitchen. This didn't matter much when the net consisted mostly of static content but as people come to expect richer and more immersive experiences the impedance mismatch is more evident.
I'm not so sure abut this, if you go back ten years most people had exposure to one platform and their web experience was limited to filling a few forms.
Now the experience is much broader, many users will have a smart phone, maybe a Mac at home and PC at work, then throw in the use of web applications like Google Docs and the whole interface landscape has become much more diverse.
Leaning towards the web as a user interface guide makes as much sense for most developers as anything else.