Famo.us: Do We Really Need Another JavaScript Framework? 104
An anonymous reader writes Front-end developer Jaroen Janssen has a post about Famo.us, "a custom built JavaScript 3D rendering and physics engine meant as a replacement for the standard layout engine of the browser." The engine effectively replaces a big chunk of HTML5 in order to render more efficiently by using technology based on WebGL. Janssen questions whether the world really needs another JavaScript framework: "Is it a bad thing that Famo.us replaces major parts of HTML5? To be honest, I'm not sure. As a Front-end developer I have to admit it makes me slightly uneasy to have to use a custom API instead of 'standard' HTML5. On the other hand, like almost everyone that makes web apps for a living, I have been terribly frustrated by some of HTML5 limitations, like slowness and browser incompatibilities. Either way, it might be a good thing to try a fundamentally different approach so I'm keeping an open mind for now.
Famo.us chases another holy grail, namely the 'write once, run anywhere' dream. Instead of having to write different code for different platforms, like iOS and Android, developers can write one application that works and looks as good on all platforms, in theory anyway. This of course saves a huge amount of time and resources. Unfortunately, this idea is not without its problems and has never really worked very well with earlier attempts like Java-applets, Flash and Silverlight. In the end native applications have so far always been faster and slicker and I'm pretty skeptical Famo.us will be able to change this."
Famo.us chases another holy grail, namely the 'write once, run anywhere' dream. Instead of having to write different code for different platforms, like iOS and Android, developers can write one application that works and looks as good on all platforms, in theory anyway. This of course saves a huge amount of time and resources. Unfortunately, this idea is not without its problems and has never really worked very well with earlier attempts like Java-applets, Flash and Silverlight. In the end native applications have so far always been faster and slicker and I'm pretty skeptical Famo.us will be able to change this."
VRML (Score:5, Funny)
The world is now ready for VRML.
Superiority complexes. (Score:5, Funny)
This is basically a waste of time. What they should be doing is working with the browser vendors and standards committees to improve HTML5, not making their own inferior and heavyweight solution to add to the slow-down of the Internet.
A lot of devs don't even realize how efficient and quick modern browsers are, because they're too busy complaining and trying to solve perceived problems using these kinds of crappy replacement stacks. What's the point in having a standard framework if everyone tries to write a "Flash" to replace it? It's inane.
Especially since a lot of effort has gone into making specs that are as efficient as possible and avoid a lot of problems you don't see immediately; several of these frameworks have serious performance issues that can't be rectified without the browsers themselves re-writing a lot of code. I utterly fail to see the need for this. Stop trying to replace standard technology with inferior solutions already.
Re:HTML5 & JS should just crawl away and die (Score:5, Funny)
It means that there is yet another web site that I arrive at at see an empty page or maybe a few items scattered apparently at random. I surf with javascript switched off by default. Most sites should work without javascript, OK some fancy features might be missing but I should generally see the page. Those that do not: I might look to see what javascript to enable, but all too often they are trying to pull in javascript from 1/2 dozen sites - so I guess a couple and then give up and go elsewhere.
Javascript should be used to make a page look nicer, not to make it work at all. Insisting on javascript is like insisting on flash.
I accept that a few special pages really do need special effects that need javascript, but not many of them.