Joe Hewitt, renowned Facebook and Firefox developer, slams the 'open web'

I agree with Hewitt. I've kept myself employed since I started web development in the mid 90's. I've progressed through the various approaches/languages - cgi/perl, asp, servlets/jsp, php, rails, etc... They've all been good learning experiences. But I've never felt that it was always just HTML or nothing.

In fact, many times I wished for something better and when I would play around with a fat client I would think 'oh, it's not cross platform, never mind' and that was that. In my mind, mobile, specifically the iPhone, changed everything. And on top of that it was JSON.

Nowadays, after feeling like I've done it all, when I approach a project I look for the best user experience. I look for the best design. Then I figure out if it's just web based or a mobile client or both.

Having gone thought HTML on mobile, I don't believe it's as good of an experience as a native mobile app. We had this discussion at my last job - mobile web vs. mobile apps. I the customers voted app hands down.

Anyway, HTML is still great, but like I said, I completely agree with Hewitt on this topic, 100%.