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0 pointsfbrchps17d ago0 comments

Counterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need? It can already run on most end user devices where people do most other things. IoT/Edge devices don't count here, but this day most of their data is just being sent back to a server which is accessible via some web interface.

Ignoring the fragmentation of course; although that seems to be getting less and less each year (so long as you ignore Safari).

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rustcleaner16d ago

>Counterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need?

Counter-counterpoint: Maybe it's time to require professional engineer certification before a software product can be shipped in a way that can be monetized. It's to filter devs from the industry who look at browsers today and go "Yeah, this is a good universal app engine."

mohamedkoubaa16d ago

This was cathartic to read thank you

abdullahkhalids16d ago

Yes. But it consumes at least 10x-100x more resources to run a web app than to run a comparable desktop app (written in a sufficiently low level language).

The impact on people's time, money and on the environment are proportional.

mpyne16d ago

> But it consumes at least 10x-100x more resources to run a web app than to run a comparable desktop app (written in a sufficiently low level language)

Does it? Have you compared a web app written in a sufficiently low level language with a desktop app?

Pannoniae16d ago

Yes. I can run entire 3D games.... ten times in the memory footprint of your average browser. Even fairly decent-looking ones, not your Doom or Quake!

And if we're talking about simple GUI apps, you can run them in 10 megabytes or maybe even less. It's cheating a bit as the OS libraries are already loaded - but they're loaded anyway if you use the browser too, so it's not like you can shave off of that.

skydhash16d ago

I believe Firefox use separate processes per tab and most of them are over 100MB per page. And that's understandable when you know that each page is the equivalent of a game engine with it's own attached editor.

A desktop app may consume more, but it's heavily focused on one thing, so a photo editor don't need to bring in a whole sound subsystem and a live programming system.

archagon16d ago

I think a browser is an inverted universal engine. The underlying tech is solid, but on top of it sits the DOM and scripting, and then apps have to build on top of that mess. In my opinion, it would be much better for web apps and the DOM to be sibling implementations using the same engine, not hierarchically related. You wouldn’t use Excel as a foundation to make software, even though you could.

Maybe useful higher-level elements like layout, typography, etc. could be shared as frameworks.

mohamedkoubaa16d ago

You are thinking along the same lines as me. The fact that the first thing to be standardized was HTML made it a fait accompli that everything had to be built on top of it, since that "guaranteed" <insert grain of salt> cross vendor compatibility.

There are many alternate histories where a different base application layer (app engine) could have been designed for the web (the platform)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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rustcleaner16d ago

>Counterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need?

mohamedkoubaa16d ago

This was cathartic to read thank you

abdullahkhalids16d ago

Yes. But it consumes at least 10x-100x more resources to run a web app than to run a comparable desktop app (written in a sufficiently low level language).

The impact on people's time, money and on the environment are proportional.

mpyne16d ago

> But it consumes at least 10x-100x more resources to run a web app than to run a comparable desktop app (written in a sufficiently low level language)

Does it? Have you compared a web app written in a sufficiently low level language with a desktop app?

Pannoniae16d ago

Yes. I can run entire 3D games.... ten times in the memory footprint of your average browser. Even fairly decent-looking ones, not your Doom or Quake!

skydhash16d ago

A desktop app may consume more, but it's heavily focused on one thing, so a photo editor don't need to bring in a whole sound subsystem and a live programming system.

archagon16d ago

Maybe useful higher-level elements like layout, typography, etc. could be shared as frameworks.

mohamedkoubaa16d ago

There are many alternate histories where a different base application layer (app engine) could have been designed for the web (the platform)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse