
What if I actually like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? - (37signals) - brett
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/487-what-if-i-actually-like-html-css-and-javascript
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brlewis
I love the last paragraph:

"On the user experience side of things, we're not even close to tapping out
the potential of HTML. The majority of web sites and applications still suck.
And if most developers and designers can't make a clean run with the training
wheels and constricted playground of HTML, then we probably are in no rush to
start playing with a Ducatti on the Autobahn."

So true. For example, lots of web pages have a screen version and a print
version, and in most cases they could have just used CSS media to have just
one version.

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tx
Flex has severe graphical performance issues on big surfaces: think of a giant
100% flash website, maximized 1600x1200. This is why most flash games, even
simple ones, prefer to run in a tiny window in the middle. (as originally
designed). In other words, it does not scale to a "web site" level, but rather
allows you to have richer "components" on your page, like advanced charts and
such.

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dhouston
the article seems more nostalgic than practical; languages/technologies that
provide higher layers of abstraction generally prove to be winners in the
medium to long run. i don't know if flex is the next big higher layer of
abstraction for the web (and the analogy is a little broken because flex isn't
really built directly on top of html/css/js.)

but i would love something that abstracts away the arcane bullshit that you
have to deal with when manually dealing with html, css, js, browser
incompatibilities, etc. in the same way that python/other HLLs abstract away
the details handled manually with lower level languages (e.g. memory
management, creating data structures more complex than a linked list, etc.)

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BrandonM
But you _can_ abstract it all away, with the frameworks that generate the HTML
for you. Presumably you're going to be spitting out HTML/CSS/Javascript after
some back end processing. You are free to create whatever abstraction you wish
in order to accomplish this for you.

The problem with using something like Flex is that it's not available on all
platforms and it's proprietary. When you develop for open platforms, you can
avoid lock-in and have a higher chance of the technology being available to
everyone. If HTML/CSS/Javascript can do everything you need (and I admit that
in some cases it can't) and you are using something else simply because it has
better abstractions, it seems to me that the lack of abstraction is a
consequence of laziness or lack of imagination.

~~~
willarson
Pretty sure that Flex is going to be open sourced "real soon now", which I
think will be a real boon.

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jamongkad
I grew up using the above technologies. And I do love them to bits(Although I
get lazy coding HTML and CSS every now and then) After reading the entry more
deeply I can't help to think this post is about DHH's relunctance to use Flex
+ Rails technology. <http://flexiblerails.com/>

Granted I love Rails but still use Perl and PHP to code most of my apps, I'm
not too keen either to learn Flex at this point in time(depending on my mood
anyway).

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sagejoel
Problem is more with browser compatibility than the underlying technologies.

