• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Dion Almaer

Software, Development, Products

  • @dalmaer
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Show Search
Hide Search

The holy grail of a Web SDK

June 7, 2022

As I sit here watching WWDC, I get that same feeling. Everything is vertically integrated. The layering of the SDKs, with much that is shared, and then differences for iOS vs. Mac vs. tv, etc. You can’t hope but look at the Web and think “oh man, the paradox of choice over here… with so much evolving and changing to keep up with!”

The old analogy comparing dictatorships vs. democracies continues to ring somewhat true.

I have made the mistake in the past of wanting to chase the holy grail of a Web SDK that has the benefits of a unified stack that takes care of everything. However, I have learned that this is a holy grail in the sense that it can’t actually exist on the Web in the form that you think of.

The quest is wrong. We shouldn’t try to be like Apple, and compete in the same way with a history and ecosystem that isn’t setup to succeed in that form.

Well, what is the right quest?

  • We should embrace the ecosystem, and the players lower in the stack (e.g. browsers shipping the web platform) should embrace the fact that so much evolution happens on top. Plan for this. Be malleable and modular, and allow for shifts and changes. Most of all, be enablers for the stack on top.
  • The web platform can absolutely do better with undergrounding gains that come from the evolution in user space. The Web is a meta-platform that ships with browsers. Anything in user space is fairly costly, but has the trade-off where it can evolve quickly (downloading libraries / updating libraries).
  • It is a fair criticism that the Web has many primitives baked in for documents, but leaves much of app development to user space. If you build something truly app-y, you can end up somewhat frustrated. It’s improving all the time, and there are things that are amazing about building web apps, but there is a ton to improve here.
  • In general, there is value in seeing what primitives are needed to help the various types of experiences that users choose on the Web. It’s so broad, and the needs for content, commerce, apps, and games are different and yet share a lot.

I am seeing a lot of progress in areas that push us forward:

  • WebAssembly as a lot level runtime for client AND server that can change the game, opening up a TON of room for the ecosystem to innovate.
  • Massive CSS improvements with container queries and new helpful syntax bumps, and losing the need for preprocessors for obvious changes (this is all good undergrounding!!)
  • Apple hiring and catching up with app related APIs (e.g. Web Push, making PWA not be somewhat broken). There is still so much that is needed here, both in WebKit catching up and also the entire Web pushing forward. Dogfooding with Active Recall is very humbling!

Let’s lean in. Platform folks work together and build hooks and capabilities that those on top can innovate with. App devs and framework/library folks, share what you need. Together, push on where we want the Web to go and use the fact that it isn’t run by one company.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Tagged With: Web Development, Web Platform

Primary Sidebar

Twitter

My Tweets

Recent Posts

  • Generative AI: It’s Time to Get Into First Gear
  • Developer Docs + GenAI = ❤️
  • We keep confusing efficacy for effectiveness
  • The holy grail of a Web SDK
  • The rise of the extensible app platforms

Follow

  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Tags

3d Touch 2016 Active Recall Adaptive Design Agile Amazon Echo Android Android Development Apple Application Apps Artificial Intelligence Autocorrect blog Bots Brain Calendar Career Advice Cloud Computing Coding Cognitive Bias Commerce Communication Companies Conference Consciousness Cooking Cricket Cross Platform Deadline Delivery Design Desktop Developer Advocacy Developer Experience Developer Platform Developer Productivity Developer Relations Developers Developer Tools Development Distributed Teams Documentation DX Ecosystem Education Energy Engineering Engineering Mangement Entrepreneurship Exercise Family Fitness Founders Future GenAI Gender Equality Google Google Developer Google IO Habits Health HR JavaScript Jobs Jquery Kids Stories Kotlin Language Leadership Learning Lottery Machine Learning Management Messaging Metrics Micro Learning Microservices Microsoft Mobile Mobile App Development Mobile Apps Mobile Web Moving On NPM Open Source Organization Organization Design Pair Programming Paren Parenting Path Performance Platform Platform Thinking Politics Product Design Product Development Productivity Product Management Product Metrics Programming Progress Progressive Enhancement Progressive Web App Project Management Psychology Push Notifications pwa QA Rails React Reactive Remix Remote Working Resilience Ruby on Rails Screentime Self Improvement Service Worker Sharing Economy Shipping Shopify Short Story Silicon Valley Slack Software Software Development Spaced Repetition Speaking Startup Steve Jobs Study Teaching Team Building Tech Tech Ecosystems Technical Writing Technology Tools Transportation TV Series Twitter Typescript Uber UI Unknown User Experience User Testing UX vitals Voice Walmart Web Web Components Web Development Web Extensions Web Frameworks Web Performance Web Platform WWDC Yarn

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

  • January 2023
  • September 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012

Search

Subscribe

RSS feed RSS - Posts

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

Dion Almaer

Copyright © 2023 · Log in