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Continuously (re) hacking the web in perpetuity or?

1 points by justaaron ↗ HN
this might be the wrong place to ask this, but i've been noting a few trends over the last 20 years or so...

why are web-developers so damned clever? do we really need to do all of this to ourselves?

the web is just a port, a protocol, and a model for interaction, underneath it all. the original vision was clear: site index pages cataloged/linked-to resources available in that directory. it wasn't imagined nor planned-for that we would wish to do async nor continuous stream-like interaction with servers.

why on earth can we not live with the existing web, and move on towards inventing other spaces?

a browser is just a shitty sandboxed OS with a declarative markup renderer. there's nothing to stop anyone from making a different client-side x-terminal... (as that's what people are trying to turn the web into, apparently)

the obvious breaking point is VR... we will eventually have to re-invent VRML and continue onwards... why not build a protocol and client suitable for this next-gen activity?

4 comments

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Piskvorrr
Same question can be asked about any iterative technology. "Why are those computer scientists so goddamn clever? Math is just numbers, why can we not just live with that, why do we need to build on top of it? What has the invention of writing ever done for us?"
justaaron
do you think that's a fair summary of what i posted?

I don't.

please try to understand the actual proposal/argument in lieu of constructing straw-people.

Let me be clearer: why are we accepting this continual repurposing of something for what it wasn't designed for in lieu of moving onward?

do you think the web just dropped from the sky one day?

the web is based on http over port 80 server and client have been more or less defined. one can keep tacking things onto it awkwardly but it's a hack...

I don't expect people from inside the web-builder bubble to necessarily get it, as they will regard all the new hoops to jump through as necessary, and the way of the herd to be just and good... I just hope that after 20+ years in this industry, you will also consider questioning things a bit...

Piskvorrr
Yes. Next summary: "Oh, me so enlightened; wake up, web-sheeple! I am the only one with 20 years of experience."
justaaron
to be clear: I regard the iteration on web technologies not as some kind of progress, but rather as blind trendiness and rampant wheel-reinvention... i can think of countless examples where we have come full-circle, even a decade ago...