"Some people claimed that websites without CSS and JavaScript are "bland". Who cares? If your content is readable and accessible without the noisy bells and whistles of loading animations and a fancy-pants design, then ship it.
Someone else said HTML-only websites are "ugly as hell." I disagree. They're beautiful."
Is the www an information system for hyperlinking and sharing information over an internet or is it something else. Is the www the software program (e.g., "browser") used to access it.
Imagine if people criticised books for the fonts they are printed in, how the paragraphs are formatted, whether they have images, and so on. Imagine if readers were forced to wear special reading glasses to see the text.
Generally, book reviews focus only on the textual content not the presentation. I wonder why.
Using a text-only browser (not Lynx, mind you), I can read content faster and easier, with less distraction, than I can using a graphical browser running Javascript provided by an advertising company. YMMV.
As it happens, I can discuss www content submitted to HN with folks who are using such graphical browsers. Yet I cannot see the same fonts, images or formatting, nor do I execute any Javascript. For example, I read the text of the OP website and I am commenting on it here, but I have no idea what it looks like in a popular, "modern" graphical browser running Javascript and controlled by an advertising company. How is this possible.
It seems to me there is a functional aspect of www content, i.e., information, that is independent of the software used to view it.
Web developers like to assume there are only a handful of software programs that can be used to view www content, and thus by manipulating those programs they can control how www content appears to the reader. In practice, given the takeover of the www by "tech" companies living off advertising and VC money, that may be true. However text is text. I can view and process it with an infinite variety of software. I can make it look however I wish on the screen.
The www can be whatever someone wants it to be, as text can be extracted and manipulated in an infinite number of ways. Users of the www can, in theory, process the information found via the www in any way they choose.1
1. For example, GPT-3 was created using a text-only corpus extracted from the www, namely Wikipedia and Common Crawl. Web developer Javascript is ignored.
You seem to be stuck in the era where the "web" was really about distributing text content - often blogs or articles.
I'd argue that's not really what the web is anymore. A good chunk of it still does that (for example - this discussion probably falls into that category). But there's a whole section that actually is distributing applications using html/css/js.
They are not distributing long form text. They are providing spreadsheets, collaborative word documents, rich monitoring and analytics solutions, custom CAD software (yes, really - https://www.tinkercad.com/), online chat applications, plus far more than I can list.
Basically - if there was a desktop app for something, there's probably a website version of it now too.
So - no, I don't agree that the web is just text. I also don't agree with your main focus comparing it to books.
Imagine the fucking gall it would take to walk into a comic conference and say this: "Imagine if people criticised books for the fonts they are printed in, how the paragraphs are formatted, whether they have images, and so on."
That's the thing is though if most of the web is about sending documents and media, while only a fraction of it is spent on delivering desktop applications, then wouldn't it be better to just split off the part of the runtime needed for applications into it's own thing so we don't have to run untrusted code just to read a blog or watch YouTube?
You're more than welcome to do that if you'd like, but most users don't like - because it turns out documents and applications tend to go hand in hand (just like your code is data, and your data can be code). Basically - that line is a hell of a lot more blurry than you're making it out to be.
If you don't want to run javascript - use a browser that doesn't run javascript, or turn it off in your browser of choice.
If you don't want to run js to play youtube - open the video url in VLC.
But again - I think you're glossing over the progressive nature of a lot of these applications. Ex: Youtube isn't just a video feed (despite what we'd sometimes like). It's an application with comments, streaming, voting, searching, sharing, and many more features.
Can some of those be done without JS? Yes.
Does it make since to use JS to implement many of them? Yes.
Can some of them only exist with JS? Yes.
Go click the "Go live" button in Youtube and then come back and tell me how you're planning on implementing that application feature in plain ol' HTML?
Of course documents and applications go hand in hand. You need applications to view them after all. But do documents need to also be applications?
I submit they do not. Maybe YouTube has to have js for it's features but I don't accept that that's good. I don't accept that what YouTube, Twitch, Vimeo and Dailymotion provides warrants the need for each to have their own separate applications that have to be downloaded and allowed to run on my system.
I can understand that. In some situations I can even respect that. I think - sadly - you're tilting at windmills.
In other situations - I'd argue you're just wrong. The simplest benefit of a web app vs a local app is exactly the isolation that the browser provides.
To be blunt - the applications from youtube/dailymotion/twitch/etc are NOT running on your system. They're running on the browser. They can't touch your files by default, they can't touch your other apps, they are uninstalled when you close the tab. That's incredibly powerful. It's incredibly liberating too. Users in places with fairly tight restrictions on installed software are almost always allowed to use most web apps (the limitation is usually concerns around inappropriate content - not so much security).
Basically - The browser is the OS that is literally designed around allowing you to run unknown code downloaded from other networks, from untrusted sources, with a modicum of security and consistency.
I think it's very, very hard to surpass the browser as a distribution method, and I think the possibilities it allows are, frankly, miles beyond basically anything else we've invented in the space.
Do some folks go overboard and create bloated, crappy web apps? Absolutely. Just like some desktop apps are complete pieces of garbage.
Does that mean we should throw the baby out with the bath water? My opinion is a resounding "no".
> Do some folks go overboard and create bloated, crappy web apps?
I'd argue the problem is they create unnecessary web apps. Every damn corporation's and its aunt's (no matter how tiny mom-and-pop organizations they are) home page, basically just a fricking brochure, is an endlessly-scrolling blinking self-reformatting SPA nowadays, in stead of just a simple page that stays the fuck put in the browser so you'll actually the link you thought you were clicking.
(There, ya gots any more clouds for me to shake my walking stick at?)
> the applications from youtube/dailymotion/twitch/etc are NOT running on your system. They're running on the browser.
The browser runs in your system. The applications run in your system. This is as inane as saying any other interpreted language doesn't run in your system.
> they are uninstalled when you close the tab.
Except for all of the parts that aren't
There's no reason you can't achieve the same level of isolation in other runtimes. I don't think it's likely this would take off, obviously, we're already too deep into the browser-as-shitty-os rabbit hole.
I think the point is that the modern web repeated the doom of Microsoft Office to a certain extent.
There are code libraries and horrid Microsoft libraries for extracting information from Office documents, or API calls to Office itself to do so, but it is NOT EASY. And wow does Microsoft love this, because you end up buying office ... everywhere.
The modern web may not be so centrally owned as the Microsoft Office monopoly, but it does bury all forms of information under ludicrously bloated generated javascript / css. HTML actually is the forgotten stepchild of the javascript / css / html base of the web.
While WebAssembly offers hope for undermining the javascript monopoly, it probably won't help.
From where we are now, the data structuring and extraction is basically enabled by HTML. Javascript/CSS are obfuscators, not enablers to that. And to the point of many, that's how the tech industry likes it, because extractable / analyzable HTML pages are hackable and reformable and the tech companies lose control of "their" data (which is your data that you gave them, but that's another rant).
That is, they lose the ability to reliably get all the ad revenue.
Someone else said HTML-only websites are "ugly as hell." I disagree. They're beautiful."
Is the www an information system for hyperlinking and sharing information over an internet or is it something else. Is the www the software program (e.g., "browser") used to access it.
Imagine if people criticised books for the fonts they are printed in, how the paragraphs are formatted, whether they have images, and so on. Imagine if readers were forced to wear special reading glasses to see the text.
Generally, book reviews focus only on the textual content not the presentation. I wonder why.
Using a text-only browser (not Lynx, mind you), I can read content faster and easier, with less distraction, than I can using a graphical browser running Javascript provided by an advertising company. YMMV.
As it happens, I can discuss www content submitted to HN with folks who are using such graphical browsers. Yet I cannot see the same fonts, images or formatting, nor do I execute any Javascript. For example, I read the text of the OP website and I am commenting on it here, but I have no idea what it looks like in a popular, "modern" graphical browser running Javascript and controlled by an advertising company. How is this possible.
It seems to me there is a functional aspect of www content, i.e., information, that is independent of the software used to view it.
Web developers like to assume there are only a handful of software programs that can be used to view www content, and thus by manipulating those programs they can control how www content appears to the reader. In practice, given the takeover of the www by "tech" companies living off advertising and VC money, that may be true. However text is text. I can view and process it with an infinite variety of software. I can make it look however I wish on the screen.
The www can be whatever someone wants it to be, as text can be extracted and manipulated in an infinite number of ways. Users of the www can, in theory, process the information found via the www in any way they choose.1
1. For example, GPT-3 was created using a text-only corpus extracted from the www, namely Wikipedia and Common Crawl. Web developer Javascript is ignored.