Some parts of a web browser are generally useful for applications. The APIs that control how the application interfaces with the host operating system, security, networking, etc. But the parts of a browser that deal with actual content are often problematic.
As a casual user of HTML and CSS, I'm often struck by how stupid the layout controls are. How very simple things ("centering text") are often confusing and difficult. And it's striking how these layout and content limitations make it necessary to add layer after layer of complexity (mostly in the form of JavaScript and CSS) in order for anyone to make a "modern" web page successfully. Whereas older applications that are not "web-based" allow any casual user to create rich document presentation just by pointing and clicking.
The Web today is like an Indy 500 race car with foot petals. I think we need to consider the future and how we want computers to work, and start moving towards that, rather than perpetually carrying forward the status quo.
Because the web was not meant for applications, but documents. Even JS was a toy project to do fun stuff. Now, we want full-fledged applications on top of it because it happens to be the common platform and learning JS is easy (no types, no pointers).
As soon as Flash came to be, we should have thought of a standard better suited for applications.
As a casual user of HTML and CSS, I'm often struck by how stupid the layout controls are. How very simple things ("centering text") are often confusing and difficult. And it's striking how these layout and content limitations make it necessary to add layer after layer of complexity (mostly in the form of JavaScript and CSS) in order for anyone to make a "modern" web page successfully. Whereas older applications that are not "web-based" allow any casual user to create rich document presentation just by pointing and clicking.
The Web today is like an Indy 500 race car with foot petals. I think we need to consider the future and how we want computers to work, and start moving towards that, rather than perpetually carrying forward the status quo.