[HN Gopher] The baseline for web development in 2022
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The baseline for web development in 2022
        
       Author : benwerd
       Score  : 55 points
       Date   : 2022-01-27 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (engineering.linecorp.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (engineering.linecorp.com)
        
       | dmm wrote:
       | > but none were as big as the official retirement of Internet
       | Explorer (IE)
       | 
       | How many years does Firefox have left?
        
         | mcdonje wrote:
         | Hopefully a lot!
        
       | darklion wrote:
       | > number of web standards only Safari hasn't implemented is many
       | times bigger than those of Firefox and Chrome
       | 
       | Is that _actual_ web standards, or just what is listed on
       | caniuse.com? The reason I ask is that a lot of  "standards"
       | aren't actually standards:
       | 
       | Service workers are not yet a standard: "This is a living
       | document. Readers need to be aware that this specification may
       | include unimplemented features, and details that may change.
       | Service Workers 1 is a version that is advancing toward a W3C
       | Recommendation." (https://w3c.github.io/ServiceWorker/)
       | 
       | Web Application Manifest is not yet a standard: "This document
       | was published by the Web Applications Working Group as a Working
       | Draft using the Recommendation track.
       | 
       | Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by W3C
       | and its Members." (https://www.w3.org/TR/appmanifest/)
       | 
       | Background sync is not a standard: "This specification was
       | published by the Web Platform Incubator Community Group. It is
       | not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track."
       | (https://wicg.github.io/background-sync/spec/)
       | 
       | Cookie store is not a standard: "This specification was published
       | by the Web Platform Incubator Community Group. It is not a W3C
       | Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track."
       | (https://wicg.github.io/cookie-store/)
       | 
       | Streams is not a standard, it's just a specification: "This
       | specification provides APIs for creating, composing, and
       | consuming streams of data that map efficiently to low-level I/O
       | primitives." (https://streams.spec.whatwg.org)
       | 
       | So does Safari suck because it's not supporting _actual_
       | standards, or does it only suck in comparison to Chrome because
       | Chrome is willing to implement technologies that aren 't
       | finalized standards and technologies that aren't even on a
       | standards track?
        
         | conradfr wrote:
         | Safari sucks because it's only available on macOS.
         | 
         | It's really annoying when doing web development, especially as
         | that's actually the browser that has the most chance to act
         | different from the others.
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | And iOS also. At least on macOS I can use any other browser.
           | On iOS I can only use Safari (either directly or under the
           | hood).
        
           | aspenmayer wrote:
           | You can download Safari for Windows. I don't know why you
           | would, but you could.
        
             | recursive wrote:
             | No. You cannot. You would do it to test on Safari. Except
             | you cannot.
             | 
             | > Apple no longer offers Safari updates for Windows. Safari
             | 5.1.7 for Windows was the last version made for Windows,
             | and it is now outdated.
             | 
             | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204416
             | 
             | I have a MacBook sitting on my desk that I only ever use to
             | test something in Safari.
        
           | Eric_WVGG wrote:
           | Not impossible to compile WebKit for other platforms, but
           | sounds hairy. https://schepp.dev/posts/running-webkit-on-
           | windows/
        
             | linopolus wrote:
             | You could just use Steam, afaik they're still using WebKit
             | and you probably have it installed anyway ;)
             | 
             | Or another WebKit based browser (ok, not so many):
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#WebKit-
             | ba...
        
         | danaris wrote:
         | Or, to take it a step further (and in a slightly different
         | perspective):
         | 
         | Does Safari suck because it's not supporting _actual_
         | standards, or does Chrome suck because it 's trying to make
         | sure that the web only works on Chrome, like Microsoft did with
         | IE 20+ years ago?
        
           | heavyset_go wrote:
           | > _Does Safari suck because it 's not supporting actual
           | standards, or does Chrome suck because it's trying to make
           | sure that the web only works on Chrome_
           | 
           | This is a weird argument when Firefox supports many of the
           | standards that Safari doesn't, as well.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | Mostly because it is the only way to still be relevant, and
             | as the charts prove it is not doing a great job at it.
             | Typing this from FF by the way.
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | It's not really weird at all, that's actually what happened
             | with IE. It wasn't that IE was lacking but people used it
             | anyway, IE was doing really cool stuff but in it's own way.
             | 
             | AJAX is one example, IE introduced XMLHttpRequest back then
             | and it took 15 years to become a standart. So people built
             | their cool websites around IE features that were not
             | actually standards and once Microsoft screwed up IE people
             | found out that you can't switch to alternative browsers
             | because websites were built to support IE.
             | 
             | As the IE experience degraded(has become famous for
             | crashing and taking the OS with it) and there was a room
             | for improvement, Netscape become Mozilla and they
             | introduced actually good browser that later will become
             | Firefox but because most people used UI, web developers had
             | to accommodate IE by writing IE specific code everywhere.
             | That's where the hate for IE comes from, it wasn't fanboys
             | hating IE, it was developers hating IE because they had to
             | write extra code all the time.
             | 
             | Firefox may support some Chrome features but how sure you
             | are that Google will keep making a good browser? For many,
             | Chrome is already a degraded experience for what it was and
             | it is actually very nasty in favouring Google properties
             | and tracking that can be a disaster if switching away from
             | Chrome becomes as hard as it was with IE.
        
             | darklion wrote:
             | Or is Firefox willing to compromise on more technologies
             | that aren't yet standardized than WebKit is?
             | 
             | Without knowing whether the "standards" being tested are
             | _actually_ standards, it 's impossible to know.
        
               | imachine1980_ wrote:
               | not some of the tools are propose or standard some of
               | then from Mozilla foundations and try to be implemented
               | safari tend to implement standard a lot more slow than
               | the other because this isn't the core business, and let
               | browsers do more things and you don't need to use the app
               | store.
        
           | gmiller123456 wrote:
           | More like Safari sucks because Apple wants people to buy
           | native apps from its store. A lot like Microsoft wanting the
           | web to suck so people would buy Windows apps instead. It's
           | not a super secret conspiracy that requires inside knowledge
           | and a network of spies to figure out.
        
             | giantrobot wrote:
             | This is such a lame argument. You _want_ it to be true but
             | have no evidence that it actually is true.
             | 
             | A lot of the Chrome team's "standards" have problems with
             | accessibility, workability on mobile, security[0],
             | privacy[1], or just battery life. Some are neat experiments
             | that are or only will be used in the wild by advertisers to
             | track and identify users.
             | 
             | Because the Safari/WebKit team doesn't have to chase users
             | for revenue like Mozilla does they can afford to be more
             | conservative with what Google "standards" they support.
             | Being able to offer a tighter privacy posture or efficiency
             | is part of the iOS/macOS sales pitch.
             | 
             | [0] https://github.com/WICG/webusb/issues/50
             | 
             | [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/16/22387492/google-
             | floc-ad-t...
        
         | smorgusofborg wrote:
         | It is pretty funny to defend Apple (or any other browser
         | vendor) using the argument that standards are unfinalized.
         | Running living standards was the coup done by WHATWG, a.k.a.
         | browser vendors.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | [dupe] from yesterday
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30093502
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | It's only an HN-dupe if it has some non-trivial amount of HN
         | comments.
         | 
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
        
           | ChrisArchitect wrote:
           | fairplay, I just dunno how it gets resubmitted over when the
           | orig post is right there with upvotes
        
       | timetraveller26 wrote:
       | It seems that Vue has some points in its favor over React in
       | terms of speed, despite React's finner control over reactivity.
       | 
       | In the article they associate that with React's internals, but I
       | wonder if also their philosophy to leverage the developer to
       | trigger reactivity makes it easy to generate inefficient code,
       | and in that case it may be that Vue's reactivity model has it's
       | perks after all.
        
       | netr0ute wrote:
       | Why make it so complicated? Just assume everyone has a 2G
       | connection (you don't see them because of a demographics problem,
       | but 2G users are out there) and make sure all static information
       | is accessible without JS. Don't think about web browser compat at
       | all because that's a software problem which costs nothing to fix
       | on the user end, while 2G and slow processors are hardware
       | problems which cost a lot to fix.
        
         | krono wrote:
         | Don't worry, we're slowly circling back to servers pushing out
         | fully pre-rendered pages that don't require any scripts - or
         | make it more convenient to create those, anyway. React's
         | upcoming server-side components will likely be a very popular
         | solution for achieving this.
         | 
         | It's like PHP but this time in JavaScript.
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | > PHP but this time in JavaScript
           | 
           | a sizeable improvement maybe, also does using the same
           | language on both side a pro or a con ? real question
        
             | krono wrote:
             | For the vast majority of projects it certainly means faster
             | development and far lower production cost.
        
           | seumars wrote:
           | It's disappointing to see that the consensus among frontend
           | devs is to just sit and wait for a new API from react to do
           | all the work. Every framework out there has simple methods
           | for rendering a component to string which can be returned to
           | the client.
        
             | tomphoolery wrote:
             | Trust me, no one who's actually working on this in the real
             | world is banking on React's upcoming APIs for this at all.
             | 
             | Suspense is _still_ not done, and it 's been over 4 years.
             | Server components aren't happening anytime soon IMO. The
             | only reason why I think this year is still tenable is
             | because Vercel ate up all the React devs who can contribute
             | to such a task.
             | 
             | Most JS devs I've talked to or work with are writing code
             | based on what we have now.
        
               | krono wrote:
               | To be fair, React's work is the most likely
               | implementation of this concept for people to have heard
               | about before. They've been talking about it for years,
               | after all :)
               | 
               | You're either vastly underestimating the number of
               | developers at that skill level, or overestimating the
               | number of those devs you or I might ever have even heard
               | of.
        
           | netr0ute wrote:
           | If I can't use an adblocker on it then count me out.
        
           | datavirtue wrote:
           | Thank the gods.
        
           | Dma54rhs wrote:
           | The jsx soup already reminds me hacking php and html together
           | with each other, truly back to the roots :)
        
         | golergka wrote:
         | How are going to build something like Figma with these
         | constraints?
        
           | netr0ute wrote:
           | Why does anyone NEED Figma?
        
             | golergka wrote:
             | Depends on your definition of "need". But most people I
             | know that use it enjoy it a lot, and especially
             | collaboration features that they didn't have in desktop
             | software.
        
         | LAC-Tech wrote:
         | For the past 1.5 years I've been working on apps for the
         | agriculture industry, mostly in Australia.
         | 
         | This means 2G, slow 3G or satellite using customers are
         | extremely common. No G too, if they're using your product out
         | in the field. I myself lived 30 minutes drive from a mobile
         | connection in 2021. A sheep literally ate my internet by
         | chewing through the cable from the satellite to the house.
         | 
         | So those users definitely exist in my demographic. And very
         | much in the demographic of my clients, as potential customers.
         | 
         | Still, it seems to be a hard sell to make things work with crap
         | connections or offline. First off, frontend devs resist because
         | you're taking away their favourite toys. (Very rational from
         | their perspective - their next gig is probably in banking or
         | retail or somewhere else with ubiquitous fast internet). Second
         | off, those allocating budgets are very hesitant to spend money
         | on any software dev out of the mainstream. From their
         | perspective software is risky enough given its expense, let
         | alone doing something that might require specialists. (This may
         | be more of an Australian thing, they're not risk takers like
         | Americans).
         | 
         | So yes, you're very right on a technical level. I'm with you,
         | and would love to talk to others who see this. On a more
         | practical level - it's hard to make the stars align, even if it
         | will land you customers.
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | Do you ever write articles / blog entries about this ? I love
           | frugal programming (and it seems there's some people
           | interested in that too). You're experience is pretty telling.
        
           | xvector wrote:
           | Also, these customers are likely unprofitable to monetize.
           | The cost for a single SWE likely exceeds the incomes of the
           | whole town a few times over.
        
             | giantrobot wrote:
             | > Also, these customers are likely unprofitable to
             | monetize.
             | 
             | I don't see why you think this would be the case. A friend
             | of mine lives down in Gilroy, CA (south of the San Jose) in
             | a veritable mansion. He and his wife have done very well
             | for themselves. Because they chose land over some SF row
             | house their only internet access is a spotty 4G connection
             | that really acts like a spotty 2G connection much of the
             | time. No ISP is willing to run a landline out where he
             | lives and WISPs aren't much better than the 4G. He's
             | definitely not the only monied person with shitty Internet
             | access.
             | 
             | Lost 2G users don't necessarily have 2G (or equivalent)
             | connections all the time. There's plenty of places or times
             | where 4G gets congested and performs terribly even when the
             | end users have high end devices and nominally good
             | connections. A lost sale because someone couldn't complete
             | a form because of poor coverage on the subway is a lost
             | sale.
             | 
             | Mobile Internet should never be expected to be some fixed
             | value for any user. Someone with a brand new iPhone on a
             | network with great 5G coverage can still be standing behind
             | a lamppost or something and get 2G levels of network
             | performance. Since an overwhelming percentage of web
             | traffic is from mobile it doesn't make sense to not degrade
             | gracefully in poor network conditions or just minimize
             | resource use.
        
             | netr0ute wrote:
             | What about if it's all unpaid? FOSS is a thing, after all.
        
         | Lamad123 wrote:
         | You are a 2G user when you most need the Internet. Just drive
         | in parts of New York state or Northeastern Pennsylvania (I
         | mention these two states because they are not remote empty
         | rectangles like Idaho or Utah).
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | 2G and 3G are going away soon, it's LTE/5G or GTFO.
        
           | nicbou wrote:
           | Not in the Berlin U-Bahn, or on German intercity trains. Not
           | in large swathes of rural land. Not for people who ran out of
           | data, but still need to Google stuff.
        
             | bitwize wrote:
             | In the USA, the major telcos are shutting off their 2G and
             | 3G towers, _this year_ -- after which if you are not
             | reachable with LTE or 5G, you will simply have no service.
        
               | netr0ute wrote:
               | That doesn't account for private stations or congested
               | areas where the service is technically 4G or WiFi, but
               | you get 2G speeds.
        
           | netr0ute wrote:
           | > 2G and 3G are going away soon
           | 
           | Only in the most developed countries, as places like Bolivia
           | are still hanging on to 2G. You just don't hear about those
           | places because of that demographics problem, so people assume
           | 4G/5G are all that's out there.
        
             | SkyPuncher wrote:
             | How many companies are targeting their primary use case in
             | Bolivia?
        
               | netr0ute wrote:
               | Probably not many, but there are two good
               | counterarguments to that. The first is because that
               | "primary use case" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If
               | Some Company isn't intentionally targeting places like
               | Bolivia and instead feeds Big Macs to their website, then
               | people in Bolivia could never discover Some Company's
               | website because of its bloat. Because people can't
               | discover it, Some Company never knows that it could
               | target those people. The second is that not all websites
               | are to promote some product or company, but only provide
               | information. Information usually isn't country-specific,
               | so ignoring the 2G demographic leaves them in the dust.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Bolivian companies I guess, duh.
        
               | Turing_Machine wrote:
               | Hmm... at this point, someone with an entrepreneurial
               | bent should probably be asking him- or herself "Just how
               | much money is lying on the table in places like Bolivia?"
               | 
               | Wikipedia tells me that Bolivia has a GDP (PPP) of
               | $89.018 billion, and there are a bunch of countries like
               | Bolivia.
        
               | dudeman13 wrote:
               | If Bolivia is like sweet home, that money is concentraded
               | as fuck so either their schtick would have to be
               | ubiquitous for it to be worth it, or they would be
               | selling to the ~10% richest in Bolivia (which probably
               | have decent internet access).
               | 
               | For all that people sometimes go on about untapped market
               | potential in poor countries, it _really_ isn 't that easy
               | when >90% of the population lives on less than 350
               | USD/month.
               | 
               | Sauce: spent the first 1/4 of century of my life living
               | in a third world shithole.
        
               | rhn_mk1 wrote:
               | Is that the right question to ask? Shouldn't we rather
               | ask: how many companies care about users in Bolivia at
               | all?
        
               | it_citizen wrote:
               | So what? With that line of reasoning, very few websites
               | should care about accessibility for people with
               | disabilities.
        
               | SkyPuncher wrote:
               | Well, this line of reasoning is why accessibility is
               | federally required. It's something that most companies
               | explicitly do not care about.
        
       | irrational wrote:
       | Is Safari on MacOS and Safari on iOS the same? I'm confused when
       | it says things like Safari is the new web baseline, but I'm not
       | sure which version it means. I would think Safari on iOS would be
       | more important than Safari on desktop. Everyone that has an iOS
       | device is using Safari (whether directly or under the hood),
       | while I'm not sure I've ever met anyone that uses Safari on
       | desktop (other than to download a different browser).
        
         | Eric_WVGG wrote:
         | way over 95% the same
         | 
         | > not sure I've ever met anyone that uses Safari on desktop
         | 
         | Odd conversation starter, I certainly haven't polled most of my
         | acquaintances. The ones who have nerd-ish leanings
         | overwhelmingly use it, though, as Chrome is a crapfire for
         | laptop batteries and privacy.
        
           | DenseComet wrote:
           | Yep. I use Firefox when my laptop is docked and Safari the
           | rest of the time. It might not matter for the M1 laptops, but
           | with Intel, the difference in battery life is extremely
           | noticeable.
        
             | Eric_WVGG wrote:
             | It definitely matters for M1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/
             | brookecrothers/2021/02/21/this-...
        
       | msoad wrote:
       | The most surprising chart was how large bundle sizes are when
       | using React to build components.
        
         | golergka wrote:
         | That graph is data from real websites, right?
         | 
         | So it might be selection bias: sites with logic requirements,
         | app like, tend to use React, when simplest static websites
         | don't have any reason to.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | solidr53 wrote:
         | It's also the most popular framework. With popularity the
         | overhead of inexperienced developers npm installing everything
         | starts to show.
        
       | blux wrote:
       | To me it's surprising and unsettling to see how small the market
       | share of Firefox has become.
        
         | forbiddenvoid wrote:
         | Why is that surprising? Firefox doesn't have a narrative that's
         | compelling for the typical user and I'm not sure it's ever had
         | one that was really viable. 'Not-google' really isn't good
         | enough for the average user, and no amount of 'we care about
         | your privacy' is going to convince the common user that Mozilla
         | _does_, in fact, care about their privacy.
         | 
         | The reality is that most typical users care about their privacy
         | a lot less than we might expect or want. That's probably not a
         | great sign for society in general, but I think it's the truth.
        
           | brimble wrote:
           | They needed to differentiate themselves years ago. The value
           | prop in the early days was "very light & fast, blocks popups,
           | has tabs, is totally free with no ads". It was a no-brainer
           | to install it on every barely-technical relative's computer a
           | nerd could get their hands on. The only thing that approached
           | it and wasn't _incredibly_ obscure was Opera, and that either
           | cost money or displayed ads.
           | 
           | FF is no longer "very light & fast" (it may no longer be
           | possible to attain that and actually support modern web
           | browsing--Safari is the only mainstream browser that's even
           | close, AFAIK) and does have ads. Their various interface
           | redesigns have made it confusing as hell to my parents. Old-
           | school popups are handled well enough by ~every browser and
           | they just about all use tabs and have for over a decade.
           | Meanwhile they've added... what? To differentiate them?
           | Plugins. But now those are the same as Chrome's. Very good
           | dev tools--but now those are available elsewhere, too.
           | 
           | They needed to go all-in on something radical years ago to
           | have a long-term shot at relevance. Decentralized social
           | networking or chat built-in to the browser. Aggressive built-
           | in ad blocking & unique user-empowering controls. More, not
           | fewer, non-HTTP Internet protocols built in. _Something_. And
           | clearly not Pocket.
           | 
           | Now I don't think their market share's big enough for even
           | something like that that to save them. In fact now it'd
           | likely just kill them even faster.
        
             | heavyset_go wrote:
             | > _FF is no longer "very light & fast"_
             | 
             | I beg to differ. It's certainly faster and uses less
             | resources than even Ungoogled Chromium on the same machine.
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | > Firefox doesn't have a narrative that's compelling for the
           | typical user
           | 
           | Firefox doesn't sell you off to the highest bidder?
        
             | linopolus wrote:
             | Oh, they absolutely do, like 90% of the funding for Mozilla
             | comes from Google.
        
               | irrational wrote:
               | Google just does that so they don't get broken up. But
               | that doesn't mean Firefox is sending your data to Google.
        
         | Waterluvian wrote:
         | Hypothetically:
         | 
         | I don't care to burn calories on being an "activist." I just
         | want to visit the sites I visit and get on with my life.
         | 
         | Sell me on Firefox.
        
           | imachine1980_ wrote:
           | Firefox is sometime a good tool to have for webdev, in some
           | case Firefox(desktop)(i think i need to us a camera) work
           | more similar than chrome(desktop) in comparison too
           | chrome(android), i will totally pay money for a tool-set web
           | development of quality but as browser most advance things use
           | some quirks of chromium to work, isnt as secure as other
           | people say you need to twist thing here and there and
           | download extensions, in general is more worth use brave, if
           | you really want to have control use librewolf.net is a fork
           | of Firefox focus on privacy and work out of the box
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | It works great (in my experience) and doesn't sell your
           | privacy to the highest bidder.
        
           | tejtm wrote:
           | Use Firefox and if a site does not work just move on with
           | your life. It passively improves our future to squander our
           | attention on the less egregious actors.
        
       | datavirtue wrote:
       | "over-dependence on JavaScript are hindering our sites'
       | performance"
       | 
       | Hmmm...going to need a citation on that one. The most severe
       | energy and performance hog I have seen are the tracking "pixels."
       | I loath that shit. It brings a site to it's gnees and barfs out
       | twenty requests to Facebook every time someone touches something.
       | These tracking services and cookies are the worst abomination
       | literally ruining the web.
        
         | netr0ute wrote:
         | > going to need a citation on that one
         | 
         | > It brings a site to it's gnees and barfs out twenty requests
         | to Facebook every time someone touches something
         | 
         | Does not compute
        
       | superkuh wrote:
       | >Safari is the baseline in terms of web standards: The sites we
       | develop must work in Safari versions at least 2 years old.
       | 
       | How can anything work reliably when software's lifetime is less
       | than the time I can store meat in my freezer? Future shock has
       | hit the software world hard and nowhere harder than on the web. I
       | can understand the financial motivations for for-profit
       | businesses and why they behave this way. And I know that's not
       | going to change.
       | 
       | But as people, as human people and not just an employee fufilling
       | a corporate person's goals, we can write, support, and use
       | software for far longer than 2 years and we should.
        
         | ubercow13 wrote:
         | Who is using a browser build that is more than 2 years old on
         | the open web? Is that a sensible enough use case that it should
         | be supported?
        
           | superkuh wrote:
           | I do and it's perfectly sensible as a human person. It's just
           | not a sensible design your business around people like me to
           | make a profit, usually. That said, businesses that actually
           | want to take your money and aren't just selling _you_ do tend
           | to support very old browsers. For example, I can use my
           | browser from 2016 to browse and buy things from Amazon.com
           | very easily. Even with JS disabled.
        
             | shaunpersad wrote:
             | That's not sensible from a security perspective at all.
        
       | nicbou wrote:
       | I follow a different set of criteria for my content-based
       | website. Some are stricter, and some are more relaxed:
       | 
       | - It must be readable on the shittiest monitor money can buy
       | 
       | - It must be readable at night without straining the eyes
       | 
       | - It must be understandable by non-native English speakers
       | 
       | - It must load quickly even in the Berlin U-Bahn (underground
       | train)
       | 
       | - It must work fine with the strictest ad blockers
       | 
       | - It must work fine with JavaScript turned off
       | 
       | - It must be respectful of people's data plans
       | 
       | - It must work in Reader Mode, in Pocket, or as a printed
       | document
       | 
       | - It must work in any reasonably modern web browser
       | 
       | Web developers tend to forget that many people access the web
       | from places with poor reception, on cheap devices, with poor
       | eyesight, and with ad blockers.
        
         | sharps_xp wrote:
         | who are the groups of people actively turning off JS?
        
           | heavyset_go wrote:
           | I open a lot of tabs and my battery would die within a couple
           | of hours if I left JS on.
        
             | papito wrote:
             | It's like turning your car's engine off because that uses
             | fuel.
        
               | Isognoviastoma wrote:
               | It's like turning your car's engine off _overnight_
               | because that uses fuel.
        
               | linopolus wrote:
               | The engine is HTML. No more is needed to give me the
               | information I want, though CSS and images are certainly
               | nice. JS would be more like the infotainment system:
               | Sometimes nice, sometimes annoying, sometimes dangerous.
        
               | VectorLock wrote:
               | Idle-stop is (annoyingly) a thing, now.
        
           | nicbou wrote:
           | I honestly don't know. They're overrepresented on Hacker News
           | for sure.
           | 
           | However my website is just text on a page and I see no reason
           | for it to break when JS is turned off. Only the calculators
           | and other widget will stop working.
        
         | ozim wrote:
         | I think you are onto something but you are following with wrong
         | conclusion.
         | 
         | Web developers don't forget about those people - it is
         | businesses that forget about those people.
         | 
         | Those people are a niche and probably a niche that is not
         | profitable catering to.
         | 
         | So they are excluded from the internet by a lot of companies.
         | If there would be enough money to be made, a lot of web
         | applications would have at lest 50% of those requirements
         | implemented already.
        
           | nicbou wrote:
           | I wouldn't say so. Designers tend to forget about low
           | contrast screens. Developers tend to take liberties with
           | bandwidth and CPU usage.
           | 
           | I see those things as part of the craft.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | awinter-py wrote:
       | unsurprisingly jekyll remains the most performant option for
       | frontend JS in 2022
        
       | MrYellowP wrote:
       | I know it's a low quality comment, but from an outside
       | perspective I gotta say that modern web development is a massive
       | sack of bullshit.
       | 
       | I've coded a 3D Map for EVE ONLINE in JavaScript, running in the
       | browser, and a friend gave me compliments for it being so
       | responsive, while I was amazed about how that's even worth
       | recognizing.
       | 
       | On that day I've learned that people require using libraries for
       | being able to pretend they don't suck. I've learned that most
       | people, who code for the browser side of things, actually have -
       | at best - only shallow understanding of what they're actually
       | doing.
       | 
       | ...... yeah, I know. Sorry, but not really.
        
       | linopolus wrote:
       | To say it the other way round: Use HTML/CSS for information
       | purposes (JS where needed, nice explanatory animations etc), get
       | back to using real nice native code for applications, using the
       | OSes capabilities to the fullest, providing an experience
       | integrated with the rest of the OS, having full performance.
        
         | ng12 wrote:
         | Pretty much a non-starter. If you're selling a desktop app and
         | your competitor is a browser-based SaaS you will lose every
         | time. It's one of the rare things both end-users and IT will
         | agree on.
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | IT will gladly put those native applications available via
           | Citrix/RDP, no biggie.
        
           | jamil7 wrote:
           | Anecdotally we're able to differentiate ourselves by offering
           | a native mac app over what our competitors offer but it's a
           | niche, mac-heavy industry.
        
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