HTML in 2026 is starting to do most of what native desktop GUI frameworks did in 1996…
Well, honestly “most” is an exaggeration, when I think of what NeXT/Apple AppKit was offering around the turn of the millennium already.
It was a tremendous setback for front-end that Web 2.0 put everybody on the very lowest common denominator of UI frameworks, and then we spent decades just poorly rebuilding checkboxes and menu buttons.
Microsoft played a significant role here because they overreached around 2001, thinking their overwhelming desktop dominance will allow them to single-handedly decide the evolution of the internet’s UI layer. So they deprecated Internet Explorer (the browser with 95% marketshare) and put all their engineering bets on proprietary solutions like XAML as the HTML replacement.
Well, honestly “most” is an exaggeration, when I think of what NeXT/Apple AppKit was offering around the turn of the millennium already.
It was a tremendous setback for front-end that Web 2.0 put everybody on the very lowest common denominator of UI frameworks, and then we spent decades just poorly rebuilding checkboxes and menu buttons.
Microsoft played a significant role here because they overreached around 2001, thinking their overwhelming desktop dominance will allow them to single-handedly decide the evolution of the internet’s UI layer. So they deprecated Internet Explorer (the browser with 95% marketshare) and put all their engineering bets on proprietary solutions like XAML as the HTML replacement.