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There are few people who knows the ins and outs of the web as well as Joe Hewitt 0pt ! important; max-height: 2000px; max-width: 2000px; min-width: 0px;min-height: 0px; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; border: 0pt none; font-style:normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: "trebuchetms",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static;left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image:url("http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/theme/silver/palette.gif";);background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px;height: 12px; background-position: -1128px 0pt; background-repeat:no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/t.gif">. For the past decade,he’s had his hands deep in everything from Netscape, to AOL, to Firefox,to Facebook (where he currently works). Hewitt also knows a thing ortwo about the iPhone. He’s the one who first built Facebook’s excellentiPhone web app (before there were native apps on the iPhone), and thenthe native app — which is one of the bestapps on the platform. So when he rants about something (as he doesfrom time-to-time),people listen. And today he went on one such rant.

Following Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ post min-height: 0px; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; border: 0pt none; font-style:normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: "trebuchetms",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static;left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image:url("http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/theme/silver/palette.gif";);background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px;height: 12px; background-position: -1128px 0pt; background-repeat:no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/t.gif"> about Flash thismorning, Hewitt went on Twitter 0pt ! important; max-height: 2000px; max-width: 2000px; min-width: 0px;min-height: 0px; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; border: 0pt none; font-style:normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: "trebuchetms",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static;left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image:url("http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/theme/silver/palette.gif";);background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px;height: 12px; background-position: -1128px 0pt; background-repeat:no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/t.gif"> and started going offwith some of this thoughts. I asked Hewitt if I could recap them; hisresponse, “sure, why not.” Hewitt, some may recall, quitiPhone development over his distaste for some App Store policies.Today, seeing a wave of anti-Flash talk on Twitter spurred by Jobs’post, Hewitt startedout min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; border: 0pt none;font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: "trebuchetms",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static;left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image:url("http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/theme/silver/palette.gif";);background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px;height: 12px; background-position: -1128px 0pt; background-repeat:no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/t.gif">:

Redirect your hatred of Flash to the W3C, whose embarrassingly slow pace forced devs to use a plugin because thestandards were so weak.

Also, I am looking at you, developers who bitch whenever a browser offers “non-standard” but .innovative APIs.

Browser makers need to go nuts with non-standard APIs and let the W3C standardize later. Waiting for the committee to innovate is suicide.

So basically, Hewitt’s take is that Flash (and all plug-ins) only exists because the W3C 0pt ! important; max-height: 2000px; max-width: 2000px; min-width: 0px;min-height: 0px; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; border: 0pt none; font-style:normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: "trebuchetms",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static;left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image:url("http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/theme/silver/palette.gif";);background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px;height: 12px; background-position: -1128px 0pt; background-repeat:no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.28/t.gif"> (the governing body forweb standards) is too slow to formalize and approve innovative newtechnologies. He urges browser-makers to break away from the W3Cconstraints and start going crazy with new APIs.

He then comes in defense of Microsoft, the company that once all-but destroyed (through what just about everyone including the U.S.government thinks were unsavory means) the company Hewitt started hiscareer at (Netscape).

10 years ago we bullied Microsoft into stopping innovation on IE so the W3C could take over. How’d that work out?

For those too young to remember, IE was innovating like crazy from 4.0 -6.0, right up until the DOJ and web standards commies intervened.

@jeff_lamarche Oh c’mon. Aside from ActiveX, Microsoft moved the web forward faster from 96-00 than any other browser maker has.

I don’t know why MS abandoned IE, but I do know that web developers were begging them to stop innovating and just follow the committee.

Hewitt’s take here is that the antitrust action against Microsoft halted innovation in Internet Explorer. In 1996, when Hewitt says IEinnovation really started, that browser didn’t even have 10% share ofthe market, while Netscape had nearly 90%. As an underdog, IE had toinnovate. Until, of course, they took over the web, and then Microsoftinexplicably all-but abandoned the product.

Hewitt then turns to the rise of the app stores (including, yes, the App Store).

Why are app stores threatening the web and luring developers like me away from it? “Evil” proprietary tech is blowing theweb away.

I want desperately to be a web developer again, but if I have to wait until 2020 for browsers to do what Cocoa can do in 2010, I won’t wait.

The “‘Evil’ proprietary tech is blowing the web away” quote is pretty compelling (I’m still kicking myself for not using it in the headline).Again, Hewitt’s point here is that the web is nowhere near wherenon-web technologies like Cocoa are — and won’t be for a decade.

@KuraFire Did Microsoft patent their non-standard html/javascript/css extensions, preventing other browsers fromimplementing them?

@johnfoliot True, they [w3c] don’t dictate, but developers shame others who use non-standard APIs. That’s the problem.

He wonders here why some of Microsoft’s standards weren’t adopted by the W3C? Then blames the web developers for shaming other developers whouse tech not sanctioned by the governing body.

I am ranting because I want to drop Cocoa and go back to the web, but I am upset about how much power I have to give up to dothat.

How it should go: browsers innovate differently, users pick the best one, later W3C standardizes what users chose, losing browsers conform.

The core of Hewitt’s argument. Web technologies aren’t moving fast enough, and why should he have to use a less powerful language toconform to web standards? Again, he hopes that browsers will start toinnovate and force the W3C to conform to them.

@joseph_wanja I love what Cocoa can do, I just don’t like C-based languages for UI programming.

The reason why Hewitt doesn’t just stick with Cocoa if he finds it superior to web-based languages.

@eston Users might be aware of their choices if more developers wrote browser-specific sites. Developers really pick thewinner.

An urging for developers to take action to reverse the trend.

@JamesWatch IE6 was fucking amazing in 2000. It’s not fair to compare it to modern browsers.

A word of caution for those who bash IE6 — remember what it was like when it came out.

@joseph_wanja unfortunately I would recommend Cocoa [rather than web languages] at this point. Wish I didn’t have to saythat.

Cocoa, while not perfect, is better than web languages.

@michaelvillar So launch a different browser. Not a big deal. Know what is a big deal? Having to buy a different phone for eachapp store.

An interesting point. Hewitt is saying that while it may seem like a hassle to have the web coded for different browsers, it’s much more of ahassle to have apps coded for different phones.

@jjathman I’m not justifying ActiveX, but the html/css/javascript side of IE which at one time was state of the art.

Again, more defense of IE back in the day.

From here, Hewitt goes into a series of thoughts on web vs. native apps.

@ppk Yes, exactly. I’d rather developers had forced users to launch different browsers instead of making watered down x-browsersites.

@ppk That’s sort of what is happening with mobile web vs. native mobile apps, except app stores don’t extend the browser, they replaceit.

@slauriat “best viewed in X” was not as bad as “buy another phone”, which is what we got for letting the web go to shit so apps could rise.

@ppk As someone who has tried to do both cutting edge native and web iPhone apps, iPhone Safari is a joke compared to iPhone Cocoa.

App stores replace the web, simply because their languages are better, in Hewitt’s mind. And it’s our own fault for letting the web goto shit, and letting this happen. His last tweet is particularlypowerful: Hewitt does have a lot of experience on both sides, andconsiders iPhone Safari to be a “joke” compared to what you can donatively. This is a sentiment a lot of developers whisper about, butseldom say publicly.

Finally, Hewitt qualifies some of his statements a bit.

I’ve been hard on Flash, but we should all thank Macromedia/Adobe for 10 years of picking up the slack of the W3C,Microsoft, and Mozilla.

And really, how screwed would we be if the WebKit team weren’t so god damn competent? Ok, signing off now, thanks for listening. :)

Fair enough, plenty of juicy post-worthy comments for one day.