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Comment by StrawberryFrog | Hacker News Reader

The argument that "xyz on the web is a toy and will never be fast enough / xyz in html,css,javascript will never provide enough functionality to be really useful or as full-featured as their 'real' desktop counterparts" is an argument that has been consistently wrong, or at least become wrong over time in every case. Why should the next few years be any different?

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^^^ pretty much. Full featured applications are and have been being built with what is basically 10 year old web technology.

Simultaneously, users are coming to the realization that full featured isn't what they need. Thanks to the drastically lower cost of distributing software over the web, instead of monolithic, multi-purpose software from giant companies, small shops are building single-purpose applications that target niche markets. User experience is better, and costs are lower. Consumers and the economy as a whole wins.

If I had built my career on client-based Windows development, I'd be getting out of that burning building as fast as possible.

instead of monolithic, multi-purpose software from giant companies

I'm not so sure: amazon.com seems to fit that description fairly well.

Agree 100%, but also would like to add that the only reason we can't develop things faster, better, and more performant is that so many companies have been focused on making their own tools faster and more performant. If Microsoft can design something as cool as F#, they can make a responsive HTML + JS rendering engine. They just haven't put their money there.

They're certainly turning their gaze onto it. IE9 and the IE10 previews show this.

Java was supposed to take over everything, scripting languages were supposed to take over everything, etc. C/C++ are still the primary languages for native application development.

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