Exactly my thoughts. Web is a shitty app platform. And because it's a decentralized platform – the specification is developed separately from the implementations – it's moving forward too slowly.
Currently, the native platforms and the web is a mess imho. Tons of web standards, android, ios, linux, windows, osx, etc. Web and native platforms have different strenghts but there's no platform that combines them. I wish there was one solid, well-designed platform for both interactive documents and applications and for both mobile devices and desktops.
I'm (no longer) a fan of Google, but I'm beginning to think that if Google did this with Chrome, it would be a positive thing. Imagine the massive amount of programmer man-hours it would save.
My exact position is this. Imagine Google built a open-source, very well-designed doc & app platform, with the advantages of both the web and native platforms. If this platform would get widely adopted, it may be a good thing.
Edit: Linux is similar to what I'm talking about except it's a lower-level platform. It's open-source and has a majority market share in many segments (servers, supercomputers, smartphones).
> Imagine Google built a open-source, very well-designed doc & app platform, with the advantages of both the web and native platforms. If this platform would get widely adopted, it may be a good thing.
I don't think it's a good thing if Google achieves this by making Blink into a de-facto standard, effectively making Blink (a large pile of C++ code controlled by a single vendor) the only viable browser engine.
> Tons of web standards, android, ios, linux, windows, osx, etc.
There was a time in the not too distant past that there was pretty much one dominant computing platform, and it wasn't exactly elysium.
I get the problems with web standards (right now I have a front end engineering job) and the multiplicity of platforms, but I'll take that over monopoly monoculture.
True, but 1) it was not a well-designed good platform 2) it wasn't free and open-source. Linux is becoming a monopoly too (and is a monopoly in some segments.
No monopoly will ever meet your first criteria over a long period of time. Absent competition and a plethora of competing engineering platforms, there's simply no pressure to make things well designed, and no competitive selection to help distinguish what even is well designed.
The idea that we can have the good parts of a monoculture but "do it right this time" and avoid the horrific downsides is a fantasy.
I'm pretty sure Windows at the time (before monopoly) was a preferable platform than it's competitors.
Problem is that there doesn't exist a platform that can be made and satisfy all possible use cases present and future alike.
Wishing Google descends from the heavens and make a perfect Web APP platform/protocol, is akin to believing a God will descend from the heavens and grant all people's wishes (even if they contradict each other).
Currently, the native platforms and the web is a mess imho. Tons of web standards, android, ios, linux, windows, osx, etc. Web and native platforms have different strenghts but there's no platform that combines them. I wish there was one solid, well-designed platform for both interactive documents and applications and for both mobile devices and desktops.
I'm (no longer) a fan of Google, but I'm beginning to think that if Google did this with Chrome, it would be a positive thing. Imagine the massive amount of programmer man-hours it would save.