PWAs could be made to not suck.
But Apple and Google don’t exactly have a huge incentive to do that.
Plus pushing users through an app store at least enforces a minimum standard of app quality, which as a user, I like.
But Apple and Google don’t exactly have a huge incentive to do that.
Plus pushing users through an app store at least enforces a minimum standard of app quality, which as a user, I like.
I've hear that fantasy before
> But Apple and Google don’t exactly have a huge incentive to do that.
Google is literally the main company behind PWA push. Android doesn't have any of the perceived or real limitations that iOS has. Well, where are these non-sucky PWAs?
Did you hear it from Steve Jobs?
https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...
Electron apps also had/have a bad reputation and the came vscode.
On VS Code: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35450206
That aside, focusing on the main topic, and now I am answering more seriously.
You claimed PWA that do not suck are a fantasy. My point is it is not such a crazy thought. It is very possible. Now that Apple wants to appear less monopolistic (probably because of Epic court case) they are finally giving more permissions to PWAs.
On top of that the founder of the company expressed this same vision.
Both things, together, make me think that it is not such a fantasy.
The only difference is the APIs it has access to.
The reason why PWAs suck is that it has access to some pretty basic APIs.
Who controls the APIs? Apple and Google.
They’re the only people that can make a PWA nice. However, you constantly hear about efforts to make PWAs nice from people other than Apple and Google but these people aren’t in control of anything and honestly don’t matter.
Now Google may have been behind PWAs but from what I see, it’s been mostly to make web apps work better in browsers — apps like Gmail. But they’re not that invested in replacing apps with PWAs because if they were, you’d see them dogfooding their own apps as PWAs. However, they’re not.
So really, neither Apple or Google are invested in replacing apps with PWAs and until the dominant platforms want to, it will never happen.
- it failed when Palm tried it
- it failed when Microsoft tried it
- it failed when RIM tried it
- the “sweet solution” that Steve Jobs called web apps when the iPhone was introduced was called a “shit sandwich” by potential developers who wanted native apps.
On another note, in the history of computing, all cross platform GUI apps have always sucked.
VS Code is one of the most successful open source cross platform GUI apps of all time. Who would have thought that good ol' HTML would finally fulfill the promise of "build once, run everywhere".
Sublime Text is implemented natively (C++) and uses a fraction of the resources to accomplish similar functionality. I know we live in a period of plentiful system resources where RAM usage no longer practically matters, but using 1.5GB RAM for a few files open seems insane, even more so that this is now normalized.
If VS Code is slower than sublime with the same level of functionality, why does it currently totally dominate the market? Is it because devs just love Microsoft?
It does use a lot more resources, but it turns out that people care a lot less about memory usage than UX speed.
That may or may not be the primary reason for the difference, but I don't think it can be ignored.
Because it only has the same level of functionality when you conveniently ignore how easier it is to write plugins
It is free! Free as in free beer. So all those trillions are going to very good use, considering it is the most used editor. And its open source too!! What a web tech success story this one...
> and still running into issues like "we can't make the terminal fast enough
Imagine that! A cross-platform code editor with its own configurable integrated terminal that hooks into the apps extension system. But someone wrote a blog post in 2017 explaining some performance improvements, so bring out the pitch-forks and burn it all down!
You're confusing price and cost of development
> so bring out the pitch-forks and burn it all down!
That is literally not what I wrote, but at this point it's clear you're not interested in discussion beyond low-level trolling.
Adieu
Yes. Not all discourse has to be literal. It's called a a metaphor. And your "trillion dollar company throwing thousands of man-years" is called a hyperbole. You are talking about the most successful cross platform code editor of all time, so if you want to be taken seriously, use level-headed arguments rather than emotional exaggerations.
> but at this point it's clear you're not interested in discussion beyond low-level trolling.
> Adieu
I wouldn't consider a discussion where someone cites a 6 year old blog post about performance improvements as proof of "throwing thousands of man years" as a serious, or worthwhile discussion. You can go. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
As another example, if Google were to say tomorrow that they would release a high performance database, I’d believe it. If they were to say they are going to release an original social media platform, I would laugh.
Also, are you saying that Microsoft doesn’t know how to make developer tools or support platforms?
Now that all those AND the browser engines are better, there's a lot more that can be done, and better too.
But it absolutely wasn't the native SDK that developers wanted.
Microsoft Teams though...