Re: [dev] rebooting the web (it was: surf rewrite for WebKit2GTK)

From: Lee F. <REMOVED_UPON_REQUEST_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:19:13 -0400

Hey,

On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Ralph Eastwood <tcmreastwood_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here are my uses (if your uses are significantly different or if I
> have missed something, please reply!):
>
> Browsing
> - for software (github, sourceforge, etc.)
> - for news
> - random humour
> - academic journals/articles
>
> Forums
> - reading forums
> - replying to forums
>
> Blogs
> - reading blogs
> - commenting on blog posts
>
> Online shopping
> - Amazon etc.
>
> Software bug trackers
> - Github
>
> Social networking
> - Linkedin
> - Facebook etc.
> - Twitter (I don't use it)
>
> Web applications
> - Google drive
> - Google office applications for when I can't be bothered to boot into Windows
> - Games (I don't play web games, but conceivably others might)


I think this is a great way to start. We need to break down the use
case of the web to know what everyone needs (to increase adoption of
this new "standard").

A lot of web sites function as interactive advertisements or
applications. An interactive advertisement is like an application, but
is more closely related to print media...

So currently JavaScript and DOM serves as a way to manipulate a
document. Another way to see this is JavaScript and DOM allow us to
create programmable documents. Are there currently any alternatives to
this? I can only think of XML being like this off the top of my head.
We are free to use any language that supports XML (which is basically
every mainstream language).

So to me, looks like using XML solves one problem: we can use any
language Y with document structure XML.

Should the resulting "thing" then be just binary that is sandboxed?

Another problem is being cross-platform. We need a technology that
supports the produced binary (could be byte code) on all systems. Said
binary can do many things, like draw, calculate, and do logic.

So how do we get around that?

Maybe what suckless envisions is a pure-text web where everything is
just coming in like a printer, and there is no programmable aspect.

Just my 2 naive cents,

Lee
Received on Fri Oct 31 2014 - 20:19:13 CET