Comment by no_future | Hacker News Reader

Comment by no_future | Hacker News Reader

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After doing web for a little bit, ending up loathing it, and then checking out iOS and enjoying it so far, I couldn't hope for this outcome more. I never realized how crippled browser based web applications and the ancient, shitty tools used for creating them are before developing on a web-connected platform that uses a systems language directly for its applications. Pretty much anything you can do with a computer, you can do in an iOS/Android app, and it can connect to the web, which lets you create rich experiences far more easily. To make any modern web application for a browser, you have to use garbage like opinionated JS frameworks and a myriad of other crutches and hacky solutions because the tools for the frontend are incredibly limited and were not designed for what is demanded of them today. Plus browsers don't easily support connection protocols other than HTTP, so this leads to a whole other host of hacky backend solutions for developing so called "real-time" applications, when you could easily use something like UDP were you not limited by a browser. Only downside to iOS/Android platforms is that they are governed basically by the Apple/Google dictatorships(which is somewhat understandable, because it would be a disaster if anyone could so easily distribute applications widely capable of executing malicious code on a user's device), and it is completely up to them what is allowed and what isn't, in contrast to the open nature of the web. I don't know how this could be remedied, seeing as there is an undeniable trend of more and more consumer-facing web activities being done through mobile apps, rather than browsers. Something like a completely FOSS device OS with a decentralized marketplace; e.g. anyone with a server can host their application, similar to how it is with jailbroken/rooted phones? This still wouldn't solve the problem of people being able to execute malicious code on a user device, but I guess if you think about it it isnt much different from some idiot downloading "free cursors" from some malware site and giving themselves a virus like what happens all the time today.

Really? Web technologies are much easier to work with and make a much better UI toolkit. Just look at the share amount of developers doing Web stuff and compare them with the amount of developers doing iOS.

And btw, iOS development is easy for as long as you do not want to customize things. Once you start changing the standard controls you are entering the land of no return.

Now compare this with web technologies which are designed to be customizable.

> Just look at the share amount of developers doing Web stuff and compare them with the amount of developers doing iOS.

I think that is more because web apps can reach a much larger audience, not because web apps are easier to develop.

I've been telling this for long time: anyone promoting web technologies as the future of all apps should give a decent try to native APIs and tools.

Which native tools are you referring to? I only have a little experience with xcode which seems decent but not that great to me. Most of my experience was with Microsoft technologies like WinForms, XAML and MFC a long time ago.

To me, HTML+CSS which I am only really starting to use lately, is a much more pleasant experience. There are many quirks obviously, but I dread to think about how it would have been to design something that doesn't just look like a plain vanilla app in one of the native frameworks. I think Flash was probably a nice design experience with a bit more holistic approach, but I never learned that and I don't see a reason to now.

Well, what I meant was more APIs than tooling itself. Many hate XCode, but I think it OK, and AppCode is decent alternative.

I've been dealing with the web tech for some 18 years now, and iOS development experience was really refreshing. Yes, doing anything not plain vanilla takes some work, but the APIs are very powerful, and even so with addition of UIDynamics and friends. OTOH if you want plain vanilla app you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

>> I dread to think about how it would have been to design something that doesn't just look like a plain vanilla app in one of the native frameworks

I dread to think about how it would be to design something that does just look like a plain vanilla app in HTML5+CSS+JS.

> Which native tools are you referring to?

I know it's a little dated, but I love Java SWT for producing native GUI. In particular, I almost exclusively use 'GridLayout' on all my controls and it just works.

With HTML + CSS I find it difficult to map 'how the screen should look' in my head to the HTML/CSS code due to the complexity of the layout mechanism. I often grind my teeth and think, "How can such a simple layout be so difficult to produce?!"

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