You are entirely correct on both counts. The fact that we have been driven to madness by the horrible design of the web does not, in any way, mean that it's not still madness to do it.
The ultimate goal is to deliver functionality to users. Users don't give a damn what the platform is. They want application functionality which is as easy to access as typing an easy to remember name in an address bar. The means of achieving this goal taken by developers have been convoluted in the extreme. Each step has its own 'reasonable argument' defending the decision made, but it still adds up to madness.
The fact that we have been driven to madness by the horrible design of the web does not
I wouldn't characterize it as such. The reality is, we are pretty effin lucky the Web turned out the way it did. It does it what it does very well. I mean we have an open platform that every major tech company is on-board with, that isn't controlled, wholly, by any single one of them, a platform that works on almost every capable device out there. Those same companies cannot agree on anything else and are openly hostile to each other in every other space, except this one. It could have been worse. And future versions of JavaScript are looking pretty good too!
I'd prefer that HTML/CSS was better designed for building web-applications (right now it's a Frankenstein that doesn't know whether it wants to be a UI toolkit or markup for text). I'd prefer a language like Dart or Python to power web-pages, instead of JavaScript. But oh well.
The ultimate goal is to deliver functionality to users. Users don't give a damn what the platform is.
And that's part of the reason why JavaScript sticks around. Users don't care, and you can get far with JavaScript.
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Nobody would compile to JavaScript if there was an analogous platform on the Web. There isn't one.
You are entirely correct on both counts. The fact that we have been driven to madness by the horrible design of the web does not, in any way, mean that it's not still madness to do it.
The ultimate goal is to deliver functionality to users. Users don't give a damn what the platform is. They want application functionality which is as easy to access as typing an easy to remember name in an address bar. The means of achieving this goal taken by developers have been convoluted in the extreme. Each step has its own 'reasonable argument' defending the decision made, but it still adds up to madness.
I wouldn't characterize it as such. The reality is, we are pretty effin lucky the Web turned out the way it did. It does it what it does very well. I mean we have an open platform that every major tech company is on-board with, that isn't controlled, wholly, by any single one of them, a platform that works on almost every capable device out there. Those same companies cannot agree on anything else and are openly hostile to each other in every other space, except this one. It could have been worse. And future versions of JavaScript are looking pretty good too!
I'd prefer that HTML/CSS was better designed for building web-applications (right now it's a Frankenstein that doesn't know whether it wants to be a UI toolkit or markup for text). I'd prefer a language like Dart or Python to power web-pages, instead of JavaScript. But oh well.
And that's part of the reason why JavaScript sticks around. Users don't care, and you can get far with JavaScript.
Apparently this is called "open". Black is white, god is bad, truth is a lie, web is open.