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Comment by flukus | Hacker News Reader

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.

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>> 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.

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.

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