"Towards a Modern Web Stack"

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

This is interesting.

Ian "Hixie" Hickson editor of #WhatWG HTML specification for 10 years, in January 2023 criticises the use of #HTML, #CSS, #Javascript for intricate #Web applications, and proposes an alternate approach based on 4 lower-level #OpenStandards:

1. #WebAssembly

2. #WebGPU

3. #ARIA (for #a11y)

4. #WebHID

Gets criticised for it and defends his proposal on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612696

(Correct link to the Google Doc is in bottom comment by Hixie)

Erlend Sogge Heggen

@smallcircles thanks! I’ve been trying to get to recover this link for so long, haha.

It’s a novel concept well worth considering as an experimental path. Would be cool to see someone make a browser specifically made to explore this.

Erlend Sogge Heggen

Curious what thoughts you have on this @zicklag

There’s something quite ‘web of data’ about Hixie’s idea, but you’ve arguably come up with something far more backwards web-compatible in #leafprotocol

Zicklag

@erlend @smallcircles I think this idea has merit. It's not a web of data, but instead a new version of the browser as a portable application platform.

We've increasingly used the browser as a way to just ship our applications to users, and this attempts to remove a lot of the accumulated cruft.

I think this is a good partner with the "web of data". Leaf can provide the data, and that can provide a programmable, sandboxed way to make apps that interact with the data.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@zicklag @erlend

New uses for the browser, yes. But also, and more important I think, de-emphasizing the browser as first-choice 'app UI engine' in favor of native UI toolkits.

I tooted about #Makepad, which is an example that uses #Wasm and #WebGL: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/113377878227117720

Makepad runs in the browser, but that's a secondary choice. Run it native and local-first and potentially ditch the browser-for-apps altogether.