Something I don't see anyone else saying: the World Wide Web's primary "language", HTML, being so incredibly un-powerful and reliant on browsers for new features, is an intentional, FOUNDATIONAL design principle, called the Principle of Least Power: http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Principles.html
I'm not saying I completely agree with it, but the rationale behind the principle, and its incredible success, are compelling arguments against what the article proposes, that are not addressed whatsoever.
Also, a nitpick I don't see anyone else making: the author doesn't seem to know the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web, which is acceptable for a mediocre Web developer, but pretty embarrassing for someone proposing a foundational change to the Web (one that, contrary to the provocative "new Internet" gospel in the first paragraph, doesn't affect the Internet Protocol Suite whatsoever).
(And of course, as pointed out by a plethora of other comments, the proposed foundational change is essentially the Java VM.)
Looking at your GitHub your resume is nowhere near as illustrious. Maybe we can go back to the old days where we were just polite and gave our colleagues the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming that lazy terminology is a signal for incompetence?
Did you not read the section of my comment asking for an assumption of competence? In no way am I arguing that he is incompetent based on his GitHub -- just the opposite.
I really don't think my point was that complicated. The OP latched on to a minor word choice in order to make a judgment about the poster's competence. If we picked an equally arbitrary measure, like github excellence, the OP would not fair so well either. However, it is quite obvious that both metrics are fairly poor. Instead of making snap judgments of people, maybe we could just give them the benefit of the doubt?
Your point is not complicated, but on the other hand you didn't actually make it until now. You relied on me understanding that you consider you consider judgement-by-Github to be equivalent to judgement-by-terminology. But honestly: how was I to know that "hey yer Github sucks" was actually an exemplification of what the next sentence in your post said not to do, and not just an ordinary internet insult?
In hindsight my phrasing came across as very insulting and if I could edit it now, I would. Please note that the intent was merely to snarkily question his domain knowledge regarding Web development, and not to assert he was clearly an incompetent.
I also fully admit that as an undergraduate student, I am nowhere near as impressive as the Stanford PhD student (though you could have chosen a more fair comparison than between a copy-edited resume and a skimming of my "GitHub resume"). I do humbly submit that MathQuill is more substantive than any JavaScript project you or Edward Yang has ever created (or than your or his contributions to any JavaScript project).
Lazy terminology is better known as "inaccurate communication" or simply "bad writing." Ironically enough, writing good English (or whatever language one uses) is just as important, if not more so, than writing good code when it comes to building software.
“Words, they mean things!” I’ve historically been pretty bad about using the right words for things, and I’ve had colleagues chew me out repeatedly for it. But in this case, I think the intended meaning is pretty unambiguous.
First off, if you were offended, that bad writing on my part, and I apologize. If I could edit it now, I would.
The meaning was indeed unambiguous, what I intended to say was that your choice of words damaged your credibility a wee bit. Happens to me all the time, I can see now that you just wrote a quick blog post to promote a paper a friend wrote that you found thought-provoking. No judgement.
In replies to other comments, you seem to have quite clearly addressed the concern that the proposal is essentially the Java VM all over again, countering that this proposal has a better ABI that will make all the difference (is my understanding correct?). Nowhere have I seen you address my concern that this, not just violates, but completely and utterly rejects a core design principle of the current Web that is arguably partly responsible for its success (certainly Tim Berners-Lee, the creator and essentially BDFL of the Web, argues for it).
In fact, this concern occurred to you: "I can’t use Adblock or Greasemonkey anymore (that would involve injecting code into arbitrary executables), and it’s much harder for me to take websites and use them in ways their owners didn’t originally expect. (Would search engines exist in the same form in this new world order?)" However, it looks like you didn't really think that thought through, and had never heard of the Principle of Least Power.
Again, I don't claim to fully agree with it. However, I can't deny that the Web is incredibly successful, and if I were to assert the creator of such a successful technology was completely wrong about one of the fundamental design principles that they espouse was critical to their technologies' success, I'd have some damn good arguments why.
A charismatic professor of mine, Scott Shenker, has a quote by Don Norman he likes a lot: "Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." This, Shenker says, is why a physicist invented the Web, not a computer scientist.
I don't know. But it's hard to argue with success.
> Something I don't see anyone else saying: the World Wide Web's primary "language", HTML, being so incredibly un-powerful and reliant on browsers for new features, is an intentional, FOUNDATIONAL design principle, called the Principle of Least Power:
People have been fighting against this since the Web first hit the mainstream circa fifteen years ago now. First it was tables and single-pixel transparent GIFs, then it was a whole lot of Flash and Java and a few sites done pretty much entirely as JPEGs, then those people got their hands on CSS and Javascript, which is pretty much where we are now.
That got us quirks mode, tag soup, and "This website is best viewed with". OTOH, the semantic web never caught on, either, and a lot of great proposals surrounding microformats died due to nobody caring about them.
It's almost a law, really: The Web is never, and will never be, precisely what you want it to be. However, it will likely be good enough.
I'm not saying I completely agree with it, but the rationale behind the principle, and its incredible success, are compelling arguments against what the article proposes, that are not addressed whatsoever.
Also, a nitpick I don't see anyone else making: the author doesn't seem to know the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web, which is acceptable for a mediocre Web developer, but pretty embarrassing for someone proposing a foundational change to the Web (one that, contrary to the provocative "new Internet" gospel in the first paragraph, doesn't affect the Internet Protocol Suite whatsoever).
(And of course, as pointed out by a plethora of other comments, the proposed foundational change is essentially the Java VM.)