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0 pointsmarcosdumay8mo ago0 comments

It always bothered me that people got in the trouble of making a web-app, that generates designs, and those designs are not plain web pages.

I guess one could create a really good tool where UI designers make a real web reusable pattern language, and UX designers specialize them into a set of templates the software developers can actually apply.

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robenkleene8mo ago· 3 in thread

> It always bothered me that people got in the trouble of making a web-app, that generates designs, and those designs are not plain web pages.

Figma isn't a web app in the traditional sense of the word, it's a C++ app with a WebAssembly compile target. https://www.figma.com/blog/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-...

E.g., it's more similar to how Adobe Illustrator and other C++ graphics programs render content than it is how a web browser engine renders HTML and CSS.

fragmede8mo ago

That's an implementation details and doesn't answer the higher level product incongruency. Tool A, used to design for technology B, doesn't output files in technology B format. It's fine to point out that Tool a uses technology C under the hood, but that's the tail wagging the dog, and doesn't make sense, even if there's an explanation for it.

robenkleene8mo ago

To address your point specifically though, Webflow is (at least from my perspective) the inevitable result of the line of thinking you're pursuing. So I'd be curious what you think of Figma vs. Webflow, and why those two products have their relative market positions.

I.e., "Tool A, used to design for technology B, doesn't output files in technology B format. [...] doesn't make much sense".

E.g., why not just use Webflow then? From my understanding, that's what it does, that's what it's made for.

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robenkleene8mo ago

Sure, but I was interpreting the parent comment as implying the underlying technology was important to the output format:

> people got in the trouble of making a web-app [...] and those designs are not plain web pages.

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