The net and web browsers have develop into Lovecraftian horrors of an need for x unprecedented scale. They’ve long since left "scope creep" territory and entered "oh my god please simply stop" territory, and are trucking on through to hitherto unexplored levels of obscene scope. And we don’t want what they’re promoting. Google pitches garbage like AMP1 and pushing dubious half-assed specs like Web Components. Mozilla simply fired everybody relevant2 to focus on crap nobody asked for like Pocket, and fad nonsense like a paid VPN service and virtual reality tech.3 [2020-08-14: It has been identified that the VR group was additionally fired.]

Microsoft gave up fully. Mozilla just hammered the last few nails into their casket.4 Safari is a joke5. Google is all that’s left, and they’re not a very good steward of the open web. The browsers are drowning beneath their very own scope. The web is useless.

I name for a direct and indefinite suspension of the addition of latest developer-dealing with APIs to net browsers. Browser vendors want to start fascinated with lowering scope and slicing features. WebUSB, WebBluetooth, WebXR, WebDRM WebMPAA WebBootlicking changing User-Agent with Vendor-Agent cause let’s be honest with ourselves at this level "Encrypted Media Extensions" - this crap all needs to go. Sooner or later it's essential to cease adding scope and begin specializing in performance, efficiency, reliability, and security6 at the scope you have already got.

Enough is enough.

1. Nobody wants AMP. Google knows it, you realize it, I realize it. If you’re a Google engineer who continues to be engaged on AMP, you're a disgrace to your area. Take responsibility for the code you write. This mission needs to be dead and buried and the earth above salted, and it needs to happen yesterday. ↩︎

2. No layoffs or pay cuts on the management level, of course! It’s not like they’re chargeable for these problems, it’s not like anyone’s fucking liable for any of this, it’s not just like the very thought of personal duty has been forgotten by each executives and engineers, no sir! [2020-08-14: It has been pointed out that some VPs have been laid off. I additionally wish to make clear that the private accountability I find absent on the engineering stage is extra of a commentary on Google than Mozilla.] ↩︎

3. Oh good, the web is strictly what VR needs! It’s definitely not a huge time-sink requiring the highly skilled low-level engineering talent which Mozilla simply completed laying off, or years of effort and tens of millions of dollars simply to appreciate that the new state-of-the-art is still just an expensive and underwhelming product whose few finish-person purposes make half of their customers movement sick. ↩︎

4. Next time they should purpose for his or her executive’s heads, perhaps they’ll jostle them round sufficient to get the two wires in every of their heads to make contact so that they’re briefly succesful of creating basic decisions and not simply accumulating multi-million-greenback paychecks. ↩︎

5. 2020-08-14: I haven’t used Safari in over 10 years, so possibly it’s not so unhealthy. However, so long as it’s single-platform and closed source, it’s nonetheless a internet unfavorable on the ecosystem. ↩︎

6. The web is perhaps one for 4 on these proper now. ↩︎

Articles from blogs I read Generated by openring

Status replace, October 2023

Hi all, very long time no see! It’s been more than two months because the final status replace. My excuse for this silence is 2-fold: I was on go away for five weeks, after which X.Org Developer’s Conference happened. During my time off, I’ve traveled in Korea and Japan. I…

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Type Inference - And a bit Bit More

A description of how type inference for Go works. Based on the GopherCon 2023 discuss with the identical title.