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Comment by eduction | Hacker News Reader

What is this person actually proposing? In concrete terms?

This reads like a lot of hand waving and talking in circles from someone who drank an extra pot of coffee.

People have been trying to suck functionality from the web into the browser since Netscape 4.5 at least. The devil is in the details.

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What he's actually proposing are Web Tiles[1], which he explains in the next article in this series. Basically a move from web pages as Internet-connected applications to being locally-cached reusable components that compose into workflows.

1: https://berjon.com/web-tiles/

Someone should write an article about that then because this series of articles does a poor job of explaining both the problem and the solution.

Even the linked page doesn't contain the phrase "web tiles" outside of the title and a link back to itself

i tried chatgpt prompts, still not getting much out of it either

I agree. These ideas are poetry, based on our jazz standards and hymns.

I disagree with “a good book is one that confirms what you already believe,” even if Willy Wonka writes it.

> This reads like a lot of hand waving and talking in circles from someone who drank an extra pot of coffee.

This reading seems too dismissive and simplistic, and not respectful of the people involved. At the base of the article:

Many thanks to the following excellent people (in alphabetical order) for their invaluable feedback: Amy Guy, Benjamin Goering, Ben Harnett, Blaine Cook, Boris Mann, Brian Kardell, Brooklyn Zelenka, Dave Justice, Dietrich Ayala, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, Fabrice Desré, Ian Preston, Juan Caballero, Kjetil Kjernsmo, Marcin Rataj, Margaux Vitre, Maria Farrell, and Tess O'Connor. Needless to say, anything dumb and stupid in this article is entirely mine.

Is there a specific point you found circular or hand-wavy?

The point that nobody wants tabs was handwavy and extremely dismissive of the fact that I actually do like tabs.

Based on my past experiences with other UX people who want me to live without a UI element that I'm attached to, I'd be willing to bet money that he's failed to understand something about how my brain actually works. And mocking people who might have my preference goes a long way to convincing me that he won't want to listen to why people like me don't want to use his version. Whatever it is. (He didn't make that clear.)

Thanks for your clarity! While not the ancestor commenter, you lay out a criticism of that point well.

I agree with you the point about tabs comes across as insensitive and lacking in empathy for people who like tabs.

Take for example: For all users, tabs are the wrong answer to something people want to do: organise their information, even if it's just a small current stack of interactions

Criticism of tabs is warranted and it's worth exploring other solutions, but to pretend that tabs have no use cases, thereby seeming to suggest that anyone who likes them is "wrong" or, even "dumb", is difficult to support. This exaggeration makes the points less effective.

And mocking people who might have my preference goes a long way to convincing me that he won't want to listen to why people like me don't want to use his version

Totally agree.

I thought the article made good points, but often stated them poorly, diluted them with unwarranted insensitivity and hyperbole, and was hard to read.

> The point that nobody wants tabs was handwavy and extremely dismissive of the fact that I actually do like tabs.

You do NOT want tabs and you do NOT like them, but you do NOT know that. You just think you do. Open your mind up.

I don't want tabs, for the most part. I use them for certain specialized activities, but in general, I strongly prefer using multiple browser instances in windows over tabs.

Fortunately, browsers can and do accommodate both of us. I hope they continue to do so.

That was my question as well. But perhaps he intended it as a statement of principles rather than a formal recommendation.

Sometimes it's ok to have a think-piece that makes you think. It doesn't all need to be answers.

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