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posted by dennisn on August 4th, 2011 at 3:13PM
Again, I simply have absolutely no need for anything-in-a-browser (besides an html viewer.) I already have pretty awesome programs that do all the other things I need -- there are far more of them written in C and such, (far more choice and control and customization ability), and they're far better than anything this new Yet Another Framework / Reinvented Wheel has to offer.
(Regarding opengl-in-html (or whatever it is), if you give me a single good reason for it, I'll give it a second thought. In general though, it just sounds like a bad idea. It adds bloat, probably just duplicates stuff that already exists, hinders code-accessibility/readability, adds tonnes of possible virus vectors, et cetera.)
The WWW has been around for over 20 years, and JavaScript (and all it's retarded offpsring) has added essentially nothing -- it did nothing important that couldn't already have been done without it -- rather, it usually broke things. (More trouble parsing content, more bugs, more incompatibilities, more viruses.) It has only been an obstacle in my life.
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posted by dsk on August 8th, 2011 at 2:00PM
>besides an html viewer.
You mean you want an html *4* viewer. And a css viewer. Apparently not html 5 viewer because perfection was reached with html 4. And not an html 3 viewer because it wasn't quite perfect.
>Moreover, using untrusted hardware provided by strangers is generally not a good thing if you value your privacy at all.
That's a nonsensical statement in a world with such things as online banking.
>It provided decent html display of my emails while I was abroad.
So you provide an use-case for web-based access to your personal resources that made your life easier and could not be replicated with installed software and you still don't understand how every other person on this planet prefers a browser for numerous other (similar) conveniences?
> I would just setup an ssh (possibly -X) tunnel to my machine.
... because of course using ssh is conceptually so much different than using the http protocol. Apparently you're fine with socket based client-server architecture when using ssh, but hey, if you want to do something similar via http (e.g. have a server push something down to the client without waiting for the client to poll or refresh the page), that's sacrilege.
>so you kinda still do need your own computer.
Nobody says you need to replace your computer.
>It doesn't require any fancy scripting
You wrote it in php which has it's own underlying runtime.
>It adds bloat
You don't know what bloat means.
>it did nothing important that couldn't already have been done without it.
How do you manipulate the html DOM tree without javascript?
>Regarding opengl-in-html (or whatever it is), if you give me a single good reason for it
Quake in a browser. Takes up no space. Runs in a sandbox. The entire client-side footprint (memory/disk) is gone when you close your browser. Instantaneous updates. No install means it will run under any computer, even computers that you don't have admin access to (which would prevent you from installing a binary).
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posted by dennisn on August 8th, 2011 at 4:53PM
I bet HTML3 was just fine too, actually. (What significant thing does 4,5.. have that 3 didn't?)
I'm not sure what you mean by that online-banking retort. You would do online banking on a stranger's computer?!
"Web-based" is also a fad buzzword, by the way. My ssh+mutt is "web based" too -- you probably specifically mean "Monster-Chrome/Mozilla-based". Sure it was convenient, *as a last resort* -- ie. if I don't have a computer with me, or if the kiosk operators are too stupid to install an ssh client.
Yes, server-pushing-browser via HTTP is sacrilege -- the protocol wasn't designed for it. That's why we have other protocols, like SSH and IRC and SMTP and IMAP etc etc. Reinventing all these well-established standards, just because it's "cool" to have HTTP+Browser do everything, is dumb, and unecessary at best. But hey, if you like reinventing wheels with nothing new added, have fun.
Regarding PHP vs. JavaShit, sure they're both "just languages", except in practice one started as a cool open-source project and was designed for the server end. The latter piece of shit started who-knows-how (probably as some proprietary crap), and shoved down the throats of clients (it's primarily client-side junk), leading to countless headaches and annoyances. (Why does a browser need to be a compiler again?)
Why the fuck would you want to change the html-dom tree? (aka. "dynamic" (ooooh) content.) That's what plugins are for, if you absolutely need them. That's also what other programs are for. (You remember what programs are, right? All those other things outside your browser window. They're actually quite useful.)
Quake does take up space -- memory and bandwidth, if nothing else. My "client-side" footprints are zero too. (Because my browser doesn't suck. (Dillo and luakit).) My distro doesn't suck either, which means my software is quite up-to-date... sure, not instantaneous, but good enough. In exchange for this lack of up-to-the-second updating, I get infinitely more variety and better software. But sure, if your distro sucks, and your browser sucks, I guess shoving everything into a browser is a bandaid-alternative.
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posted by dsk on September 5th, 2011 at 10:37PM
Just to be clear, this is argument is about your particular eccentricity. The market has spoken. A richer web is what everyone wants. The debate is over. You can hardly find anyone who thinks that the people of early 90s when hypertext was developed, somehow achieved perfection because the web consisted of simple markup and request-based architectures. Smart people are on this side too.
>You would do online banking on a stranger's computer?!
Depends, but yes, I would. At some point you have to trust somebody.
Oh, you don't trust any computer that isn't yours? Well then do you trust all the intermediaries that your packets will jump through to get to the banking server? Oh, you don't have to because you use SSL? Well, do you trust the cert issuers?
>Yes, server-pushing-browser via HTTP is sacrilege
I meant to segue into WebSockets, a protocol which is completely separate from HTTP, but uses it in the "handshake" step. It's supported by every major browser.
Why not?
> That's why we have other protocols, like SSH and IRC and SMTP and IMAP etc etc.
Well shit ... by that definition HTTP also re-invents the wheel. There's nothing intrinsically revolutionary about HTTP.
>"Web-based" is also a fad buzzword, by the way.
That's needlessly pedantic. "Web-based" is a perfectly valid way of describing a particular architecture.
>Why the fuck would you want to change the html-dom tree?
Are you retarded? What kind of a question is that? My Gmail will instantly show me an alert when a new email has arrived, without a page refresh - which you may not want to do arbitrarily (what if I'm typing an email). You can't do that without having a client-side script like javascript. The only alternative is that I use an installed program - but the market has spoken, millions of people don't want to do that. They want web-based with the bells and whistles.
>That's what plugins are for, if you absolutely need them. That's also what other programs are for.
Do you just decide to go full retard? The fuckin point of web-based application (and let's face it, gmail and others are applications), is that you can use any browser, on any computer to get access, even computers that I may not have user privileges to install full-fledged application.
I'm having a hard time discerning if your hangup is that you genuinely not know why anyone would want to access, say, email with a browser, or whether you don't see a difference between an installed application, or one that runs in a browser.
I don't know which of the two is more idiotic.
>Why does a browser need to be a compiler again
"Interpreter" ... and see above.
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