Web Tech Limitations

That's like saying stop using HTML and javascript for everything. There are more appropriate tools out there!

The only benefits of HTML are that it's supported by all vendors. But that's where it's advantages end. HTML and CSS are just a joke, and were never meant and designed to be used for application development. Javascript is a shit language, not geared towards writing performant code and projects like V8 try to workaround it, but that's just a workaround. Of course you can use hacks to achieve performance in JS too, but that wouldn't be idiomatic javascript. So, sad but true, there is lots of hype

The problem is not just a language problem. The problem is the repurpose of the web as an "operating system". HTML and CSS are OK for document layout and styling, and JS is OK for simple interactions. BUT none of these were designed to handle highly complex and dynamic applications. We are just building on the wrong foundation, hacking to extremes to twist the the framework to the current trend. We are using the wrong tools for the job.

HTML and CSS weren’t designed to be general-purpose GUI description languages. HTTP wasn’t designed to be a client-server GUI application protocol. JavaScript wasn’t designed to be a serious application programming language. And the continued evolution of those technologies hasn’t focused enough on substantially changing that state of affairs. For example, a lot of basic UI controls still have to be custom-implemented and custom-styled by each app. CSS layout and styling is still a byzantine min

Oh, how I'd like to see sanity going back to the web and identity crisis to be over. I am sick of that constant search for the holly grail of silver bullet framework. Guys, how about admitting that html, css and js are not really the best tools for the job of building apps?

I don't understand this fixation on js either. Even more, i don't understand the fixation on html, css and all so called web technologies. Common, web was never designed for the sort of applications we are trying to make it run. We need a totally new approach.

The model of html/css is not designed for the ground up for modern layout. It was a tool designed for a separate purpose with features hacked on over the years to make it work.Nowadays a website is no longer just a document. It's an application. Why have html/css the one crude way to make a web application? In the backend we have a constellation of apis, frameworks and languages to build an app, but in the front end it's HTML/CSS/JS. The role JS played is general

There are two forms of "the web"There is the document web - in which HTML/CSS/JS is more than sufficient.Somewhere between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 we started experimenting with delivering application experiences to a web browser - arguably an abuse of the document web. This is the application web and it is a distinct use case. HTML, CSS, and JS on their own provide a pretty poor application development experience. At the very least, building a full application in HTML/

Great job. I largely agree with the concepts in this well thought out paper. I have built several commercial grade products and the front-end is always where the most pain and cost exist. By a long shot. If someone doesn't agree this layer needs a serious overhaul, they are not the ones paying the bill or have not build a large scale commercial product.HTML and CSS are not clean, intuitive, or efficient beyond simple examples. Masters of these tools sadly have their heads full of legacy

Whenever I reflect on the "state" of the web the whole thing seems like such a mess.I can't help but feel that the web's progression to what it is today (framework/spa/webapp overload) was more or less a cobbled together solution using technologies that were never really designed or equipped for the task. The browser has become, quite literally, the kitchen sink--it's how we access nearly all of our applications, and today it's less common for an