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Keff
Keff

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The web does not exist - what would you do differently?

After checking this post:

This got me thinking about what the web would look like if it was re-done today. Would it look anything similar? Or would a completely new approach be taken?

What's your take on this?

Top comments (8)

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nombrekeff profile image
Keff

Interesting ideas, especially the WASM point. If I'm honnest that's one of the reasons I've not yet invested much time in digging into it, it feels incomplete and not worth the hassle for me at the moment. I like the idea, not the implementation.

Have not touched Webforms at all, didn't even know they existed. But after a quick search I see why you might say that. Never touched ASP fortunately, but eveyting I've seen has made me want to quit development xD Just kidding, though I do not like it what so ever...

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković

I would avoid JavaScript and implement something like WASM right from the start to allow people to use different programming languages on the front-end. I would keep DOM and create a uniform API for the access from any language. Styling would be much stricter, with better error handling instead of silent failures. I would add some grid system and web components as standard.

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thumbone profile image
Bernd Wechner

No-one has a crystal ball. But my suspicion is it would be what it is ... call me a kind of determinist if you will. But in a sense it has evolved, as has everything, it is not an overnight revolution, it is a gradual small step evolution. And that is the nature of things (with the exception of tipping points and actual revolutions of course, Gladwell is fun to read on that). And as such the first small steps that are likely to evolve into the web are kind of defined, hard to image being different. The tin case connected with strings (which was our 300bps dial up net in the early days) and subsequently the notions of document sharing and linking one document to another ... and so on ... I see it all emerging in a fairly similar pattern regardless of when.

And this is all assuming no benefit of hindsight, in other words total naivete. I f we live in a world with no web today, and hence no conceptualization of one, nor idea of one. Even if we had a vision, the likelihood that if the vision was grander than a small step that we reached it is small. In fact the thing about seemingly prescient people is not generally a skill they had so much as perceptual bias. That is of all the predicters and punters there were the ones we remember are the ones that got it right and maybe the ones who got it abjectly wrong and all those in the middle are simply forgotten.

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elhoube_brahim profile image
Brahim Elhoube

Math researcher I think 🤷

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thumbone profile image
Bernd Wechner

@elhoube_brahim methinks you misread the question: "This got me thinking about what the web would look like if it was re-done today."

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elhoube_brahim profile image
Brahim Elhoube

Sorry 😐 I didn't read the post content 😔
I think the web will be the same as today with a little difference in technologies
But we will have same concepts, and that because we will face the same problems we faced in 90s 🤷 and we will use the same solutions to solve them

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elhoube_brahim profile image
Brahim Elhoube

Thank you for clarification ☺️

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massii profile image
Massii

i would create it 😎