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Comment by tgsovlerkhgsel | Hacker News Reader

> Previously, this might have taken me weeks. With JavaScript, I built the prototype in hours.

I really like web/html/javascript for building UIs for this reason. It's really fast to prototype and get something decent looking/working, it has a very fast edit-compile-run loop (if you don't use any fancy tooling, as fast as you can press CTRL-S, Alt-Tab, F5), great debugging tools, and in the end, your product immediately works cross platform, both on desktop and mobile!

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How is this in any aspect better than Delphi from the ‘90s? And you get about the same performance with JavaScript on a modern CPU as ObjectPascal on an old Pentium.

I can absolutely guarantee you that it didn't give you a consistent desktop and mobile experience.

That's mainly because there was no mobile experience back then. Not one that involved a graphical display, anyway.

You’re right, ObjectPascal and JavaScript are the same experience!

Because every single person with a computer, including smartphones in the world with internet has access to a JS app via a web browser

Instant global distribution, to anyone with a computing device who enters the name of your app in a text box. Developers all over the world are paying billions per year in lost productivity for that killer feature. It's so easily worth it.

(I grew up on Delphi).

The difference is that JavaScript bootcampers have never heard of Delphi and think that Google invented software development when Chrome came out.

This is such a HN comment.

I want someone to take another stab at a simplified version of HTML (like xhtml-basic) and CSS and then have an engine for desktop apps built on it.

I still force XHTML-style markup for HTML5 applications. Maybe it's my experience that is the real problem-solver, but I feel sticking to very strict markup reduces a number of bugs that are extremely hard to solve.

> (if you don't use any fancy tooling, as fast as you can press CTRL-S, Alt-Tab, F5)

I do use fancy tooling (an editor with autosave and a framework with hot reloading), and my edit-compile-run loop is as fast as I can press Alt-Tab ;)

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