
Browser Abuse Syndrome - terminalcommand
http://wiki.c2.com/?BrowserAbuseSyndrome
======
comex
Ironically, when I clicked the link, I got stuck on some JavaScript spinner
and had to refresh to view the text.

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CaptSpify
I can't even read the text. I'm guessing it's something about "over-
complicating web development" or something similar?

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khedoros1
It's a thread, started about 2004-ish, apparently updated through 2011-ish,
complaining that people should use native apps instead of web apps. It starts
with the premise that using HTML to implement an application is abusive, since
it was developed as a document display language, not an app framework.

They focus a lot on E-Mule as a non-HTML-based, native web app. (someone else
eventually points out that it doesn't fit the customary definition of "web
app").

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jff
E-Mule isn't a web app at all, it's just an Internet application. The fact
that we have so confused the Internet and the WWW, to the point that even
people complaining about WWW conflate it with the Internet, is a fucking
tragedy.

~~~
khedoros1
I think that their argument (translated from rant) is basically that the web
should be used for documents, and that we should build some other internet-
based technology to implement applications on top of. It doesn't seem like
there was a whole lot of justification beyond "this isn't what HTML was
designed for", "Javascript bad", and "native app good".

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Animats
When was this written? 1995? They suggest loading Java applets. (2011,
apparently, but maybe the original post is earlier.)

(Thing to avoid in web design: just displaying month and day, not year, even
if something is more than a year old. Some blogs do that to look cool and
current. Then they get stale and confusing.)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _(Thing to avoid in web design: just displaying month and day, not year,
> even if something is more than a year old. Some blogs do that to look cool
> and current. Then they get stale and confusing.)_

Related, thing to avoid in web design: displaying time as something other than
ISO-8601 combined date & time format (preferably omitting the 'T' separator,
for the sake of non-tech people). If you absolutely _must_ display dates
relative to current time (like "4 hours ago", "5 days ago"), please at least
provide a full ISO timestamp in a title attribute (i.e. in a tooltip text).

HN has this problem, too. I get some find "4 hours ago" easier to read (never
mind how imprecise it is), but then soon it becomes "1139 days ago", which is
no longer funny.

</rant>

('dang, et al. - could we please have ISO timestamp as a title attribute to
the relative date here? Pretty please :).)

~~~
bmn__
Time element, datetime attribute:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/HTML/Element/time](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/HTML/Element/time)

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bdcravens
What about phone abuse syndrome? Playing a game on a phone when you should be
using a Nintendo DS or a Playstation!

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linopolus
Wanted to read this, but unfortunately I can't. Damn you, Javascript..

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stcredzero
Anything that has a certain level of utility gets "abused." Problems result,
then are solved, sometimes generating huge wealth for the solvers. This
happened with highways. This happened with cars. This happened with email.
This happened with "The Web." This even happened with print. Hell, this
happened many times with agriculture!

How much does anyone want to bet that this won't happen to AI/deep learning?
(And would I still be around to collect on the bet?)

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hosh
It's too bad there are no timestamps on this. The attitudes expressed in thise
comments seem to make sense back then and now seems so outdated.

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zeveb
Are they outdated, or have we merely ignored their wisdom?

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hosh
Interesting -- is there one or two insights or wisdom you think is still being
ignored?

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tonyarkles
HTML is still quite limited compared to native UI toolkits. It's still
fundamentally a document model that we're using to write applications.
Especially where layout is concerned: HTML and CSS are pretty clearly designed
for document layout (and they're not half bad at that!). Flexbox helps, but
it's still not there compared to e.g. layout constraints in Cassowary[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary_\(software\))

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Theodores
Give this guy a Chromebook! See how he gets on without files where the
operating system considers all programs hostile.

I was surprised he suggested an offline SQL editor, thought he would suggest
command line which is definitely impressive to clients sat next to you wanting
to see their programmer doing stuff Bourne movie style.

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jbob2000
What kind of hoighty-toighty, ivory tower nonsense is this? If developers were
this dogmatic about solving problems, literally nothing would get done.

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luke3butler
This was last edited in 2011. Things sure have changed.

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marsrover
Ironic.

~~~
pmiller2
Indeed, since the rewrite, c2 has been the poster child for "browser abuse,"
IMO. There is literally no reason to require javascript for a wiki!

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alvarlagerlof
Whoever wrote that is really f __*ing stupid

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Jonnax
Lot of hot takes, and outdated advice.

What's the point of this site?

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randomerr
"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

It gives you snapshot into what developers thought about web development in
the early to mid 2000's. Bandwidth and processor speed was in short supply.
Early web app's would bog down the average machine. And our ISP (internet
service provider for those who may not know that acronym) charged us by the
_minute_ of usage, not by the month.

Desktop clients (games and email) would download a local copy of just the data
and cache it. Many of these were applications were set to dial in the ISP,
pull your information, and then disconnect. I remember a chess client that
could be set up to dial in to the ISP every minute and then disconnect so that
you might make it under the 60 seconds charge. That was cure for bandwidth.
And the local clients were optimized for your machine so yo got faster
everything.

You actually see the same thing going on with tablets and phone. Sure you can
use Facebook through Chrome. But its slow and eats us your mobile data cap.
But if you install the app its a lot faster, richer experience. And it only
download the data it needs once without constantly reload the same contents
over and over again.

