What if I actually like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? - (37signals) | Hacker News Reader

What if I actually like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? - (37signals)

37signals.com

8 pointsbrett8 comments

I love the last paragraph:

"On the user experience side of things, we're not even close to tapping out the potential of HTML. The majority of web sites and applications still suck. And if most developers and designers can't make a clean run with the training wheels and constricted playground of HTML, then we probably are in no rush to start playing with a Ducatti on the Autobahn."

So true. For example, lots of web pages have a screen version and a print version, and in most cases they could have just used CSS media to have just one version.

Flex has severe graphical performance issues on big surfaces: think of a giant 100% flash website, maximized 1600x1200. This is why most flash games, even simple ones, prefer to run in a tiny window in the middle. (as originally designed). In other words, it does not scale to a "web site" level, but rather allows you to have richer "components" on your page, like advanced charts and such.

the article seems more nostalgic than practical; languages/technologies that provide higher layers of abstraction generally prove to be winners in the medium to long run. i don't know if flex is the next big higher layer of abstraction for the web (and the analogy is a little broken because flex isn't really built directly on top of html/css/js.)

but i would love something that abstracts away the arcane bullshit that you have to deal with when manually dealing with html, css, js, browser incompatibilities, etc. in the same way that python/other HLLs abstract away the details handled manually with lower level languages (e.g. memory management, creating data structures more complex than a linked list, etc.)

Which "arcane bullshit" do you have in mind? People talk a lot about browser incompatibilities, but the most serious ones are no longer real (nobody uses NS4) and the others are mostly covered by libraries such as jQuery. (though it is true that some of the browsers are simply lacking certain features)

But you can abstract it all away, with the frameworks that generate the HTML for you. Presumably you're going to be spitting out HTML/CSS/Javascript after some back end processing. You are free to create whatever abstraction you wish in order to accomplish this for you.

The problem with using something like Flex is that it's not available on all platforms and it's proprietary. When you develop for open platforms, you can avoid lock-in and have a higher chance of the technology being available to everyone. If HTML/CSS/Javascript can do everything you need (and I admit that in some cases it can't) and you are using something else simply because it has better abstractions, it seems to me that the lack of abstraction is a consequence of laziness or lack of imagination.

Pretty sure that Flex is going to be open sourced "real soon now", which I think will be a real boon.

I grew up using the above technologies. And I do love them to bits(Although I get lazy coding HTML and CSS every now and then) After reading the entry more deeply I can't help to think this post is about DHH's relunctance to use Flex + Rails technology. http://flexiblerails.com/

Granted I love Rails but still use Perl and PHP to code most of my apps, I'm not too keen either to learn Flex at this point in time(depending on my mood anyway).

Problem is more with browser compatibility than the underlying technologies.

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