"Yeah, if that device has an Internet connection, and your server serving
that Web app is still up, and all HTML features your Web app depends on are
supporded and enabled. But you're approaching this from the standpoint of a
developer who wants their app to be popular"
That's reminding me of somebody who is arguing against the benefits of cars
in comparison to horses. "If the car is not running out of gasoline, if it's
not broken, if there are big enough streets..."
There is no perfect technology so far, everything is evolving. Servers will
become more reliable, internet connection just as normal as electricity.
"Are you implying that HTML and JavaScript don't have to be learned?"
A lot of people already did learn them already. If those people want to make
an app, why wouldn't they make use of their knowledge?
"It's inefficient..."
depends on your criteria of "efficiency". For a webdeveloper, using the
knowledge he already has in order to achieve the desired result is very
efficient. For a user, getting his app without having to install it, just by
clicking a link, is very efficient.
Now it is true that performance of interpreted languages like javascript are
far inferior to compiled languages like c++.
But for a lot of projects, this doesn't really matter. By the way, python is
also not one of the most efficient languages out there...
"...unnecessarily dangerous..."
... if used without care. But security issues are also present in the desktop
world...
"...is inherently spyware"
That's just nonsense. The apps I built so far don't spy on anybody, and
anybody who reads the source code can verify this.
The only thing I can see is who actually requested the app, equivalent to who
downloaded it in the desktop world.
Quite the opposite: while desktop apps come to the user most of the time in
binary form, the user has to trust the guy who compiled and packaged the app
not to mess with the code before compiling.
You can not check if the source code you see is really the source code you
get. It's different with javascript apps: open the source code, and there you
go, you can verify it right away.
" I'm sorry, but the popularity of your app, as a developer, is egotistical
and unimportant. What matters is the liberty of the users."
You talk as if you have to decide for one single criteria. You can strive for
popularity and still care about the liberty of the users, you know.
You're being overly dramatic and emotional here.
