Ask HN: Why did famous.js fail? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why did famous.js fail?

14 pointsKinnard26 comments

Why didn't famous.js succeed take off? cf:http://deprecated.famous.org/

This seems vastly superior (more logical, determnistic, and appropriate for modern web development than html+css) to a lot of the other options out there.

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It's a bit of a baseless gimmick when it comes to 3D... gives you nothing much over a good understanding of CSS and geometry... which is probably good, but what did it give us for 2D?

My personal opinion: They failed because they launched big and didn't let people use it. I remember first signing up for beta, waiting, waiting, and waiting, and never getting an invite. I even tweeted at them but never got a response. They seemed to be only focused on creating buzz in silicon valley without actually letting people use their platform, maybe they thought that was marketing. But what good is marketing when no one can use the product? Later on they eventually opened up but it was too late. No developer likes to build on a platform that's going down.

It seems as though it's entirely code driven. We've largely decided that declarative langues (html, xaml) are better for building user interfaces. This looks more like swing for the web.

Why are declarative languages better for UI?

They're easier to read and code. Check out XAML for C#, it's dead simple. But one of their main problem is they advertised for too long (I remember waiting for ages) and we didn't get the 60 fps. It wasn't as fast as announced and painful to integrate.

I'd say check out knockoutjs instead, way simpler than xaml.

Because it provides I nice separation between the "static" parts of a program, the UI, and the dynamic parts, the data.

The first demo of this on the other hand, has html embedded in javascript strings. A program of any complexity written like this would quickly turn into a big ball of mud.

I'm somewhat skeptical of this separation of concerns

I'd encourage you to try it out:

http://jsfiddle.net/rniemeyer/LkqTU/

It's possible to turn any codebase into a big ball of mud. Declarative languages are just a tool, like object oriented languages are.

And arguably, if you choose a language based upon its ability to help you define what is "dynamic" vs. "static" you've made some mistakes.

>"And arguably, if you choose a language based upon its ability to help you define what is "dynamic" vs. "static" you've made some mistakes."

Please elaborate.

>> We've largely decided that declarative langues (html, xaml) are better for building user interfaces.

On the other hand, many of us decided the exact opposite.

Check the history ?. Declarative UIs has been around for, what 30-40 years, and they don't seem to be actually gaining any share.

They invariably look super-useful and productive when you build "my first app". Typically it is a "ToDo list".

Then you start using it to build something larger and then you swear a lot, and eventually realize that the whole premise is flawed, and then you decide never to use declarative UIs again, ever. lol.

Haha, that sounds like me. Except I more so swear a lot after developing too many apps using technology that was meant for adding hyperlinking to text documents . . .

Could you recommend some alternative UIs?

Any component-based UI toolkit will fit the bill. There are many of them, as this is kind of classic approach, I would recommend React.

10 years ago, it was Sencha, DOJO, etc.

As for native, every OS provides component-based UI toolkit.

"Check the history ?. Declarative UIs has been around for, what 30-40 years, and they don't seem to be actually gaining any share."

Really? Because HTML seems to be by far the most popular environment these days. many are even trying to push it to the desktop.

"Then you start using it to build something larger and then you swear a lot, and eventually realize that the whole premise is flawed, and then you decide never to use declarative UIs again, ever. lol."

What other abstractions are you using? If it was manipulating things based in jQuery selectors then I'd agree. But I find a combination with an MVVM framework (like knockout) it scales incredibly well.

I actually hate html+css and other developers I know hate it too. I feel like it's wasting many developer hours. I think one of the reasons its so "popular" is that there's no alternative that is widely supported by browsers. I think it's unlikely that mass end-user adoption can be driven by a substantially better developer experience.

However there may be opportunities elsewhere . . .

Sure it's a pain at times. But is there any other tech that makes it so easy to build apps/sites that work on anything from from a widescreen desktop to a smart phone?

There isn't one yet and that's the problem.

When/if there is one I'd expect it to share many of the traits that made html+css so successful.

In reality I'm expecting html+css to keep evolving and removing most of the pain points. Grids for example:

https://www.w3.org/TR/css3-grid-layout/

I think css+html has evolved and improved a lot. That's a good example.

But I think ultimately everything is being done to extend a legacy technology that was meant to add hyperlinking to texts and nothing more. I think a first-principles re-approach will be so much more powerful and free of the gravity of html+css constraints allowing developers to reach escape velocity.

XAML started off from a blank slate and got inferior (IMO) results. There are a lot of not so obvious upsides to html+css that often get thrown out.

Starting from scratch could be better in theory, but I'm doubtful that it will happen in practice anytime soon.

I agree starting from scratch is unlikely to happen. XAML however, wasn't helped by being built in the era when XML was perceived as the solution to every problem.

Didn't they also change scope entirely? When I signed in (and never got invited) it was more like a visualization library or something to do cool 3d stuff.. and then moved to UIs and mobile apps and whatnot when it came out.

Funny enough, the same exact thing happened with Outracks' "fuse", started as a tool (called Realtime Studio) for realtime GPU-driven, optionally interactive content like music visualization (had a slick demo for that) and demo-production (Outracks is also a demogroup) and then switched to a mobile UI tool all of the sudden. (at which point I started completely ignoring because it's completely not what I wanted)

I tried to get into it a couple of times and I could never understand it. I don't think I'm particularly slow at picking up new stuff in general, for me the learning curve was just massive and I wasn't ever quite sure why it was worth the investment. Maybe if I was trying to do browser game dev or something but I've never needed a magic periodic table[1] in my everyday development life.

[1]: http://disrupt.famo.us/periodic402/

they were solving a problem that people were not having in large enough numbers (yet).

yes, the DOM sucks and is slow no, neat 3d client effects are not what most people need now

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